A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
LordOfMurder
Bhaal
- Location
- Australia
[X] Birdsie
Having returned from the vtuber realms I'm delighted to discover that Birdsie is voting for everything I wanted while also churning out as many omakes as the rest of the thread combined. Take my energy!
Having returned from the vtuber realms I'm delighted to discover that Birdsie is voting for everything I wanted while also churning out as many omakes as the rest of the thread combined. Take my energy!
Preloaded? Probably not. But I would expect it to offer additional extra spells to learn, which I would want to look at before locking any in.
Am I correct in this assumption, @Birdsie ?
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Advanced Magic comes preloaded with more elemental attack magic, unfortunately (really shows what Arch Wizards in this world are after.) Due to being Advanced Magic, its spells are neither cheap to learn nor cheap to cast, too. If you're looking for utility, I'd suggest using the options you have on hand right now.
That said, Advanced Magic attack spells begin to cross over into impressive territories. Don't underestimate them!
What I was actually asking was if having purchased Advanced Magic gave access to additional utility purchases beyond the ones we already have. More options to choose from, not automatically filled in.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Vampiric sword that drains user's HP when drawn. You need really good DPS for it to be a net positive.
Escape Rope/Town Portal Scroll that sends only your equipment to safety. Underwear is excepted.
Belt that triples upper-body strength, so long as both hands are touching it.
Really loud invisibility cloak.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Of course! I believed that to be obvious. Advanced Magic has a wide assortment of utility spells, including but not limited to: invisibility, silence, and weather control!
Perfect! Thank you.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
I cut the previous post on the funniest line, shamelessly stolen from a Glitch discussion on RPG.net. (Talking about how you can have Tool maluses from totally working tools that are just strangely ineffective. "Stealth Skill went up by .1 points" was one of the further riffs.) Anyway, here's the actual limit:
That's a lot more forgiving than I'd been working to. Gimme a minute, I'll munchkin this!
Hey, wait! I still have four slots left!
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Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
too easy:
trick your enemies into "disarming" you
set up a shipping company
tie your hands together and fight exclusively using the Captain Kirk double-fist-club maneuver
sounds like a prop in my stage act where i FOOL penn & teller
Thank you.
@Rihaku ?
You're quite good at the logical plans, so I'm doing this before seeing you reply, but I thought you might want to take this into account.
[Konosuba] Rihaku
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
They can just drop it. The real cheat is flickering it into his hand via Charity just in time for the hit, then dropping it back out.
Should've clarified that it also needs to be worn around the waist. It's a strength bonus when posing!
I think it also sends itself!
Also, it'd have to be shipping stuff from danger to the nearest safe spot.
Do you think it would take along a Charity portal anchored to an object? Because he can do that. And then the cost increases with distance, but if he keeps it up for less than a second after it arrives, he might be able to afford both that and the hightened cost of going through himself.
Edit:
Both hands, not all hands, right? For much further down the line, how does it interact with strength boosts from shape shifting?
Edit 2: Or, as an example of something that frequently occurs in fantasy long before you get access to adjustable shape shifting, growing wings. Flight is generally quite difficult, but wings on the back count as upper-body, it's a lot easier to move ones large enough to support a human body with triple strength, and he should be able to transition to a glide when he moves his hands for spellcasting.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
*Ring that poisons anything the user is touching. Said poison is only effective when ingested.
*Longfuse boomerang grenade. Can't be cooked, activates when thrown. Homes in on thrower. Infinite supply, vanish if broken.
*Incredibly radioactive manatite variant. Recharges automatically.
*Leaky genie lamp. Can be used for summoning, but summons will be both unbound and furious with the summoner.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Ideas that didn't make the cut:
*Potion that poisons you worse than it heals, but the healing is instant and the poison isn't. (Too easy to solve with poison immunity, and not super interesting as a one-off.)
*Something that makes a poison cloud/other environmental hazard. (Too obviously weaponized.)
*Literally just the Ring of Delusion.
Huh. Two separate things that both make the Charity pockets' temporal stasis effect a drawback.
Edit:... Or maybe not in the case of the grenades. My first thought was "use portals to redirect momentum at enemy", which would make the stasis cause him to have to keep bouncing it even longer, but he can just leave it counting down stuck to his body until it's half a second from exploding, then stick it in stasis like that, and release it on the other side of an enemy from himself.
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HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Talace
It must be raining somewhere else!
Another Candidate - (about 4k words?)
For a brief moment, there was nothing. Then, a crushing formless pressure settling and congealing into the shape of a human. Ambient metaphysics contracting, before weaving a net around the surface, generating the seed which would become a soul. And then the nothingness stretched in just the right way there, and twisted n-dimensionally here, and the new sentience was jettisoned by overspace portal into a soon-to-be-orphaned baby boy in the city of Farwall, in the fiefdom of Willmore-Arundell, subject of the Imperial Expanse (hegemon of four of the twenty-three continents and colonial power in lands beyond).
The weave pulled and pushed, molding itself to the physical substrate of the body it was now in. This life would be a remarkable one, it determined, and could tell this by looking at the particular fate-lines it had already intersected with. An orphan boy, to become emperor or revolutionary, and no in-between? How narratively convenient.
--
The earliest memory Dayan Farwall can recall is of substandard orphanage fare. They would give him something vaguely edible, he would somewhat vaguely digest it, and that would be that. This cycle would go on for the entirety of his stay, from birth to the present day.
At the dining table he sat, going through the mechanical motions of eating something halfway on the gradient of slop to mush when three sharp knocks came on the door that the matron stood up hastily to receive. The food was gritty, feeling rough under his tongue. It might do to add a textural dimension to his gradient.
"Children, stand up for a bit and come to the living room."
Grateful for an opportunity to do something else, he pushed the chair back and hurried ahead of his peers.
In the living room stood a man in a crisp, tailored suit. Clean-shaven, neatly coiffed hair, and an unnatural stillness. In his hands was a device of opaque nature, whirring lightly.
Each child would get tested for magical aptitude, and provided an education accordingly, they were told. A child that has magic serves the empire better than a child that does not. Magic is the heartbeat of industry, the rising tide by which all boats rise. That seemed as good a reason as any, and Dayan decided that he would do his best to have magic, were such an endeavor possible.
And that was how it went—him, placing his right hand into the mouth of the device and doing his best not to shout as its metal jaws snapped shut on his wrist. Rising tide, Dayan thought to himself, and clenched his gut to motivate whatever forces made magic possible. He tried not to flinch when the machine started beeping. He tried even harder not to flinch when the machine started smoking.
When it exploded, he definitely flinched.
The living room was abuzz with movement, the matron torn between scolding Dayan and sighing, the unnatural man mid-stride to dispel the congealed mana clumped around his hand, and the rest of the orphans, scrambling away from the site of destruction.
Well, he thought, that probably means no one saw me flinch.
Down at his hand, he could only stare. The stuff of magic, pouring from some ineffable wellspring inside him, an eager shade of blue leaving contrails of imaginary color in its wake. A thousand fractal edges, each limned in octarine and stygian, unravelling with tremulous purpose. He could stare at this stuff for hours, pondering the full implications of that otherworldly energy.
Already, he could feel his innate connection to it building, as if the initial detection had been the crack in a dam that was filled to the brim. Instinctively, he knew that continued use would strengthen his ability to use more of it, thinning the border between this world and where that magic came from (although whether or not that is a good thing remains to be seen).
What was that world like? Did it have life? Could it even support life? Was mana something like a physical element, or anchored in something closer to a fundamental force, like gravity or electromagnetism? All this he yearned to know, in the instant after being exposed to proof that there was more to him than a stroke of bad luck at birth.
The man, after leaving and returning swiftly with a larger, meaner looking version of the device he previously came with, would pronounce him to have an output of Exceptionally High. This was the highest category they had for pure output, but since the ceiling wasn't yet defined, they would have to use more precise tests for a definitive calculation of emitted mana.
That boded well, Dayan supposed.
For a brief moment, there was nothing. Then, a crushing formless pressure settling and congealing into the shape of a human. Ambient metaphysics contracting, before weaving a net around the surface, generating the seed which would become a soul. And then the nothingness stretched in just the right way there, and twisted n-dimensionally here, and the new sentience was jettisoned by overspace portal into a soon-to-be-orphaned baby boy in the city of Farwall, in the fiefdom of Willmore-Arundell, subject of the Imperial Expanse (hegemon of four of the twenty-three continents and colonial power in lands beyond).
The weave pulled and pushed, molding itself to the physical substrate of the body it was now in. This life would be a remarkable one, it determined, and could tell this by looking at the particular fate-lines it had already intersected with. An orphan boy, to become emperor or revolutionary, and no in-between? How narratively convenient.
--
The earliest memory Dayan Farwall can recall is of substandard orphanage fare. They would give him something vaguely edible, he would somewhat vaguely digest it, and that would be that. This cycle would go on for the entirety of his stay, from birth to the present day.
At the dining table he sat, going through the mechanical motions of eating something halfway on the gradient of slop to mush when three sharp knocks came on the door that the matron stood up hastily to receive. The food was gritty, feeling rough under his tongue. It might do to add a textural dimension to his gradient.
"Children, stand up for a bit and come to the living room."
Grateful for an opportunity to do something else, he pushed the chair back and hurried ahead of his peers.
In the living room stood a man in a crisp, tailored suit. Clean-shaven, neatly coiffed hair, and an unnatural stillness. In his hands was a device of opaque nature, whirring lightly.
Each child would get tested for magical aptitude, and provided an education accordingly, they were told. A child that has magic serves the empire better than a child that does not. Magic is the heartbeat of industry, the rising tide by which all boats rise. That seemed as good a reason as any, and Dayan decided that he would do his best to have magic, were such an endeavor possible.
And that was how it went—him, placing his right hand into the mouth of the device and doing his best not to shout as its metal jaws snapped shut on his wrist. Rising tide, Dayan thought to himself, and clenched his gut to motivate whatever forces made magic possible. He tried not to flinch when the machine started beeping. He tried even harder not to flinch when the machine started smoking.
When it exploded, he definitely flinched.
The living room was abuzz with movement, the matron torn between scolding Dayan and sighing, the unnatural man mid-stride to dispel the congealed mana clumped around his hand, and the rest of the orphans, scrambling away from the site of destruction.
Well, he thought, that probably means no one saw me flinch.
Down at his hand, he could only stare. The stuff of magic, pouring from some ineffable wellspring inside him, an eager shade of blue leaving contrails of imaginary color in its wake. A thousand fractal edges, each limned in octarine and stygian, unravelling with tremulous purpose. He could stare at this stuff for hours, pondering the full implications of that otherworldly energy.
Already, he could feel his innate connection to it building, as if the initial detection had been the crack in a dam that was filled to the brim. Instinctively, he knew that continued use would strengthen his ability to use more of it, thinning the border between this world and where that magic came from (although whether or not that is a good thing remains to be seen).
What was that world like? Did it have life? Could it even support life? Was mana something like a physical element, or anchored in something closer to a fundamental force, like gravity or electromagnetism? All this he yearned to know, in the instant after being exposed to proof that there was more to him than a stroke of bad luck at birth.
The man, after leaving and returning swiftly with a larger, meaner looking version of the device he previously came with, would pronounce him to have an output of Exceptionally High. This was the highest category they had for pure output, but since the ceiling wasn't yet defined, they would have to use more precise tests for a definitive calculation of emitted mana.
That boded well, Dayan supposed.
Through the open window the gloaming haze of the auburn sky filtered in. There was a laziness about it, that suspended stray particles in amber raybeams and sapped vigor from the energy of youth.
Dayan wondered what it would be like to be a dust mote, carried on the wind with no predictable journey or endgoal.
His eyes followed the light from the arch of the mullion to the desk in front of him. The desk was oak, sturdy and reliable. His fingertips traced the whorls and spirals of the woodtop, scraping the grain and digging into it. This desk had been his desk for his entire life and now he was leaving it behind. Was there some ineffable quality of experience, that stored experiences? Could one take a microscope to a piece of wood and see on it the record of inanities it had endured? He hoped not.
His identification papers were neatly arranged in a stack on the edge of the table. Identification picture, a bleak mirror of the face in the mirror he would come to associate with himself. Orphan, it wrote in his neat handwriting on one line, twelve years of age on the other.
You have talent, they had said, you will have a future at the Imperial Academy. And that was that. The matron had signed off on the papers without fuss, her stern features unnaturally soft cast in the hue of sunset.
He would never be a dust mote now. His path was too rigid, narrowed irrevocably along the future that would come to narrow him in turn. The weight of his future began to sink down on him, pressing diffusely on his brow with an intangible ceaselessness. Never in his life had he felt this apprehension before, the unease for things too far off in the distance to see. And yet, he felt it.
Dayan shook his head. There was no point in being sentimental. The decision had been made, a trip by train chartered to the heart of the world, where the campus lay. All that was left to do, was to do.
A bit aimlessly, he checked through his suitcase for what was the fourth time today. Neatly arranged within was the sum total of all his belongings— his clothes (of which he had two kinds: recently delivered school uniforms, and mildly frayed hand-me-downs from older orphans), his notebooks (of which there were four: three for academic work, one for personal use), and the book he was currently reading.
Disgruntled that checking something you had just checked doesn't give you more things to do, he closed the suitcase and dedicated himself to the task of waiting as patiently as he could.
--
Impassively, Dayan looked up and out through the window. The sky was dark, and full of stars. The idle hum of wheels passing over a predetermined path, imperfections in spellbolted train tracks forming a rumbling soundtrack to rapidly passing scenery.
The seat he was in was exceptionally comfortable, velvet or silk or some other fabric that poor writers would write about rich people wearing. He pinched the arm of his seat. It was soft, superbly so, conforming to his touch and cushioning his movements. Was it magical, some part of the process of creation enhancing the physical qualities of the material? Or was it merely the product of exceptional design?
A crash from the carriage in front of him broke his reverie.
The scene: the conductor, clad in a suit and hat the same color of Dayan's seat. A girl standing opposed, pose agitated. She was wearing a uniform similar to the one Dayan had packed in his suitcase. He wondered if she was to be in his year level.
Between the two: a suitcase, of fine black leather with arcane crenellations rimming the metal frame. It was magic, he could tell, with an eerie certainty that resonated with something deeply in him.
"Young lady, you will have to hand over whatever object's tipped off our detector orbs. The policy of the Academy is quite clear—"
"As I was about to say, before you yanked my property out of my hands is that—"
Evidently, it was a squabble over something that wasn't any of his business. She probably had a special dispensation from the Academy, since he doubted anyone would be foolish enough to squander such an opportunity by getting expelled.
The Academy was the national institute for learning in the known world, second-to-none and coveted by many. It was the crown jewel of the Imperial Expanse, offering top-quality education in all three Schools of magic: Spellcasting, Charmcrafting, and Ritualism. Each School had specializations and subspecializations, hundreds of research laboratories and what amounted to a monopoly on mainstream magical pedagogy. Moreover, it acted as the cornerstone for the Imperial Expanse's foreign policy, subverting the works of other civilizations and churning out thousands of able combatants each year. The average graduate from the Academy would be set for life, wanting not for power or money.
He caught his reflection in the mirror. Is that to be me, when I've graduated?
--
Dayan was broken from his reverie once more, this time by the sound of someone sitting down on the seat beside him. He turned to the left, and saw that someone was in fact, sitting down on the seat beside him. A specific someone, in fact—the girl with the suitcase.
His eyes flicked from her suitcase to her face, and watched her mouth opening, about to say something.
He noticed it instantly. The scenery outside the window, frozen as if the train tracks had stopped, suspended in time. The girl's body, kept in place not by an active clenching of the muscles, but a stillness of an object in motion taken from an inertial frame of reference—there was no way for her body to naturally maintain that kind of position, not without magical interference—and then he caught it.
A movement, a displacement of something caught the corner of his eye, and there he saw, superimposed upon his own reflection, a man with eyes like drowning, a suffocating infinite color from which there was no escape. Within him Dayan felt the same resonance with this half-reflection as he did with the suitcase, magnified trillionfold. When once before it was a deep certainty, now it was truth beyond all reason, a forceful, undeniable fundament upon which other beliefs were merely anchored upon.
Before the man Dayan felt less real, as if he were a comic drawn hastily on a napkin or the errant figment of a daydream gone by. It was a force deeper than the mere overwhelming of senses, it was something that connected to a deeper basis of qualitative experience from which consciousness and qualia would arise—it was the overwhelming of being, lesser ontologies quailing in the presence of sheer unrelenting power.
And then the man spoke.
"Dayan Farwall. Having remained pure of body and exceptionally pure of mind for twelve years, you are well-suited for what I will offer you. Your compatibility, while currently stellar, could potentially be stronger in the future. Despite this, I have intervened early to prevent your subordination to the inferior fate-design of this realm, which would make you ineligible for future offers."
Inferior fate-design? Was the girl some kind of trap, sprung on him by an otherworldly force?
The man continued. "I am not a demon, arcane spirit, or contracted being. I am not the Beckoning King, the Manaeater, the Spine, or any of their emissaries or agents. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power."
Dayan knew none of these names, nor whatever those creatures were. And yet, he believed the man to be speaking the truth with the same certainty that he knew he was alive and breathing. What could be so powerful as to diminish a being with this power? The thought terrified him, and excited him at the same time.
A glint entered the man's eye, almost amused. "Make no mistake. To you, my power may seem prodigious, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens, while manageable, will weigh heavily on you for the rest of your existence. Their difficulty will not be greater than what you can manage, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously, and require great sacrifices to mitigate their worst effects. Do you accept?"
The man was offering power, perhaps, or some way to escape this supposed subordination. What need would Dayan have for power? He was set to enter the Academy and leave powerful enough to raze cities and command armies, live comfortably for the rest of his life. And yet, his mind came back to the dust mote.
What would it mean, to be free? What price would he pay for freedom from the rote tedium of life, to tear free from the routine and rhythm dictated by the pulse of another's drums. And yet, this seemed like another yoke to be put upon him, some burden that would tie him down. What worth was there in exchange one master for another?
No. He was misunderstanding. The burdens were not equal—fate's designs were opaque, bending to the whimsy of a hidden master.
At least here, he would know who held the chain. And maybe in time, come to know how to sever it.
"I accept."
A silence like the calm before the storm fell on him. "So be it."
--
Rejoice, for you have been chosen by the Accursed. Bear his burdens well, for you will only have one chance.
Choose the nature of your compact.
[ ] Combat-Type – The eyes of the Accursed close, mood contemplative. "Very well. Good tidings, Cursebearer. May your freedom be what you had hoped for."
*Become a Combat-type Cursebearer, granted immense personal might at the cost of 3 Curses. You are mildly incompatible with this option, and will need to take an extra curse to compensate.
*Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
*Your power will include some means of travel between worlds, allowing you to depart this wretched realm.
*Ace magical school like it's nothing. A comfy quest of dumpstering those in your cohort and eventually ruling the kingdom. After finishing your education, you will likely have sufficient power and means to depose the Emperor. What you decide do from there will be up to you.
[ ] Progression-Type – The eyes of the Accursed settle on you like leaden weights. Briefly, you feel like drowning again, before the moment of scrutiny passes. "Good."
"If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise."
*Become a Progression-type Cursebearer, granted the potential to attain power beyond all reason through ingenuity and effort. Due to your exceptional compatibility, this option will only cost a Crowning Curse and 1 additional Curse. What a steal!
*Receive only a modest boon of power to start, but you will almost certainly grow rapidly.
*The Crowning Curse will come to define most of your actions, as you struggle and rage against the indifference of a dying world.
*Should you survive the trials to come, you will almost certainly grow strong enough to plumb this realm of its secrets and overcome its true masters.
Choose the Curses you will bear.
[ ] The Geas of Indenture - Mortgage your future to pay for the present? The term of your service shall be no less than 937 octillion years. Immediately you will be transported to another world and given a task to complete. Nearly every task will fall into one of two forms: you will be required either to kill a predestined 'Chosen One' of some kind, or to conquer some amount of territory.
You will be granted full discretion in the completion of your tasks and there is no penalty whatsoever to slacking off provided you complete your mission within the generous time window allotted. Assassination tasks typically have a 100 - 500 year window, while conquest tasks usually have a 1,000 - 10,000 (or greater) year window, depending on the scope of the territory in question. Should you complete your mission early, you may choose to vacation in your current world for up to 10 more years before departing to the next task. Your assigned tasks will always be within your given capabilities to achieve. Failure to complete your task within the time window will result in death. You will not be assigned tasks that are totally abhorrent; assassination of a well-meaning hero is about as bad as it gets.
[ ] The Doom of Entropy – A straightforward curse. Entropy is the measure of the amount of energy unavailable to do work. As you progress and grow in your travels, you will find the amount of resources available for you to use squandered and diminished. Magical energy will be tied up in vicious sacrificial loops, spare intellect and processing power allocated to the arraying of minutiae. At the moment, it stays at a manageable 20% of your total resources. Left unchecked, it may grow quickly to consume you in your entirety.
[ ] Brand of the Wretched - A simple curse. All who meet you will be invested with a severe dislike bordering on hatred, perhaps not enough to provoke violence in civilized individuals, but more than sufficient for them to actively work against your interests. No one, not your closest friends, not your family, not even the Accursed himself, is immune to this effect. You can overcome this hatred by word and deed, but supernatural influence of any kind finds no purchase against the power of your Brand.
[ ] Affliction of Slumber - A curse of the body. No matter how powerful your physical form becomes, you will require at least sixteen hours of sleep every twenty-four hours. Missing even a single hour will result in severe physiological consequences. If enemies consistently interrupt your sleep, you will find yourself near-constantly disoriented and enervated. Your waking hours are the very stuff of life. With this choice, you surrender half your conscious existence, your very presence in the world, upon the altar of a Curse.
[ ] Brand of Conflict – A reasonably complex curse. All those who interact with you will be convinced that you are a member of a tribe or social group with which they have severe grievances against. This, depending on their disposition towards prejudice and group thought, may move someone to seek violence against you, but may also provoke nothing beyond mild dislike. In a private social setting, the effects of this Curse may not be very pronounced, but may cause extreme difficulty when speaking to a large audience, for example.
[ ] Affliction of Banality – All joyful experiences become muted, and toned to gray. Your personal enjoyment is severely hampered, losing 4/5ths of its intensity. This has no effect on negative experiences, or ones that cause suffering and misery.
[ ] Brand of the Unmemorable – Fade into the background, and be forgotten. When not in your presence, traces of you begin rapidly disappearing. Lose your foothold in the memories of others, and watch personal relationships fade into nothingness. This is exceptionally hard to mitigate, but easy enough to work around.
[ ] The Apocryphal Curse - "May you live in interesting times."
The challenges this presents will usually not be beyond your ability to overcome, but very occasionally you will be forced to dig deep and discover whether you are truly worthy of the Accursed's mantle. Remember: the greater the reprieve, the more terrible the chaos that follows. "Better to be a dog in times of peace, then a man in time of war."
*A Crowning Curse. Don't take it unless you have to.
[ ] The Unravelling Curse – "I am sorry."
Become charged with immense ontological weight. You will notice that your friends, your family, and even the contrivances of fate seem fake, like a plastic mask affixed half-heartedly to one's face. Your senses are not deceiving you—this is because they are fake.
This Curse causes the immediate and irreversible ego-death of all living entities that come into contact with you, becoming p-zombies in all senses of the word. This only works on beings with less weight than you, as their existences are consumed to fuel your continued largesse.
*A Crowning Curse.
Choose your Remittance.
[ ] Desuetude – Come into yourself, fully fledged.
The Accursed will pluck a version from yourself ten years into the future and facilitate a seamless merging, incorporating their skills, experiences, and techniques into yours while preventing identity drift. If you chose Progression, the Accursed will instead pick a version of yourself one hundred years into the future, but will gradually trickle in information at regularly interspaced intervals to prevent ego death.
This represents a massive increase in personal strength, leading to an instant mastery in your native world's art of Spellcasting as well as proficiencies in Charmcrafting and Ritualism. If you chose Progression, you will instead receive an instant mastery in all three systems of magic, as well as mastery in two other styles found into your travels to other continents: Dreamworking, and The Pyre.
*There's no guarantee that your magic system will be effective in other universes, so it would be best not to take this with Indenture.
*Mastery in Spellcasting gives you access to a wide array of unique effects, such as temporal acceleration, magical blasts strong enough to vaporize islands, and mindwiping.
*While all magic systems listed above (with exception to the Pyre) are considerably weaker individually and less versatile than the Noble Praxis or the Skycloud Eye, you are likely to find virtuous interactions between systems to let them be worth more than the sum of their parts.
*As for the Pyre, it will require some metaphysical fuel that you may not find access to during your stay at the academy.
*Additionally, your memories represent a reasonably-sized boon, giving you expertise on the generally abstruse Imperial bureaucracy and first-mover's advantage on events yet to happen.
[ ] Dark, Yet Full of Stars – Sight beyond sight.
Gain access to the Skycloud Eye, a metaphysical organ that embodies unbounded progression and vistas yet seen. Ponder, on experiences that shape you, and the dreams you concern yourself with. With an eye of endless clouds, you will never have to ask "Where?" or "How?" again.
*This organ gives you an intuitive sense for the optimal path to take to achieve your goals. This might lead you to do nonsensical things at first, such as minorly adjusting the placement of a pebble or scrawling a number on the side of a public bathroom. However, this sense always brings you closer to your goal, in a roundabout way.
*By expending memories and valuable experiences, you may engorge your Eye with energy to gain a detailed list of steps to optimize your personal values and internal self. This list will always align with the spirit and intent of your desires, as well as conforms to morally acceptable standards of the time. You do not know where these memories and experiences go.
*Lose sight in one eye. Restoration will require the sponsorship of a being on par with a High Cursebearer.
*Gain an insight into the other Metaphysical Organs, such as the Broken Glass Heart and the Lungs of Apoptosis. You have an instinctive knowledge of where their wielders are are, what they can do, and what they've done.
*They know where you are. And they're coming.
[ ] Lament – Pick up a lost sword, and swing.
A thousand thousand lifetimes lived, a million million friends lost. They were real, undeniably so, and each artifice made to suffer is another name you will carve onto the cenotaph you make from this creature's heart. Shed a tear, and fill your blade with the weight of your sorrow. You may only take this remittance if you have taken the Unravelling Curse or the Brand of the Unmemorable.
*A deep and mournful song rends your spirit. Shear away the supernatural and cleave towards the only thing that holds you together.
*The exact details of this system are opaque to you. You get the vague feeling that if you take this option, there will be further opportunities to unlock other forms of magic.
*Mitigation – The Things We Leave Behind: Someone will remember you. Someone will be real.
[ ] Homecoming – What it takes to sever your chains.
Access the Praxis, the Accursed's personal casting style. A style of magic that emanates completely from the self, relies completely upon the self, and is developed completely by the self. Advancement in the Praxis depends little on talent, much on effort and self-sacrifice. A dream of fairness, defiant against an uncaring universe. And power enough, in time, to make the universe care.
The Praxis is renowned for its limitless potential and complete omni-dimensional reliability. Where all other magics fail, the Praxis operates with unerring consistency. It excels at inflicting and preventing harm, but struggles in matters of renewal or restoration.
*It's the Praxis. The Imperial Praxis, to be precise. More growth potential than any other option on this list.
*Not much immediate power, but are you really in all that much danger?
*Do you have the willpower?
Dayan wondered what it would be like to be a dust mote, carried on the wind with no predictable journey or endgoal.
His eyes followed the light from the arch of the mullion to the desk in front of him. The desk was oak, sturdy and reliable. His fingertips traced the whorls and spirals of the woodtop, scraping the grain and digging into it. This desk had been his desk for his entire life and now he was leaving it behind. Was there some ineffable quality of experience, that stored experiences? Could one take a microscope to a piece of wood and see on it the record of inanities it had endured? He hoped not.
His identification papers were neatly arranged in a stack on the edge of the table. Identification picture, a bleak mirror of the face in the mirror he would come to associate with himself. Orphan, it wrote in his neat handwriting on one line, twelve years of age on the other.
You have talent, they had said, you will have a future at the Imperial Academy. And that was that. The matron had signed off on the papers without fuss, her stern features unnaturally soft cast in the hue of sunset.
He would never be a dust mote now. His path was too rigid, narrowed irrevocably along the future that would come to narrow him in turn. The weight of his future began to sink down on him, pressing diffusely on his brow with an intangible ceaselessness. Never in his life had he felt this apprehension before, the unease for things too far off in the distance to see. And yet, he felt it.
Dayan shook his head. There was no point in being sentimental. The decision had been made, a trip by train chartered to the heart of the world, where the campus lay. All that was left to do, was to do.
A bit aimlessly, he checked through his suitcase for what was the fourth time today. Neatly arranged within was the sum total of all his belongings— his clothes (of which he had two kinds: recently delivered school uniforms, and mildly frayed hand-me-downs from older orphans), his notebooks (of which there were four: three for academic work, one for personal use), and the book he was currently reading.
Disgruntled that checking something you had just checked doesn't give you more things to do, he closed the suitcase and dedicated himself to the task of waiting as patiently as he could.
--
Impassively, Dayan looked up and out through the window. The sky was dark, and full of stars. The idle hum of wheels passing over a predetermined path, imperfections in spellbolted train tracks forming a rumbling soundtrack to rapidly passing scenery.
The seat he was in was exceptionally comfortable, velvet or silk or some other fabric that poor writers would write about rich people wearing. He pinched the arm of his seat. It was soft, superbly so, conforming to his touch and cushioning his movements. Was it magical, some part of the process of creation enhancing the physical qualities of the material? Or was it merely the product of exceptional design?
A crash from the carriage in front of him broke his reverie.
The scene: the conductor, clad in a suit and hat the same color of Dayan's seat. A girl standing opposed, pose agitated. She was wearing a uniform similar to the one Dayan had packed in his suitcase. He wondered if she was to be in his year level.
Between the two: a suitcase, of fine black leather with arcane crenellations rimming the metal frame. It was magic, he could tell, with an eerie certainty that resonated with something deeply in him.
"Young lady, you will have to hand over whatever object's tipped off our detector orbs. The policy of the Academy is quite clear—"
"As I was about to say, before you yanked my property out of my hands is that—"
Evidently, it was a squabble over something that wasn't any of his business. She probably had a special dispensation from the Academy, since he doubted anyone would be foolish enough to squander such an opportunity by getting expelled.
The Academy was the national institute for learning in the known world, second-to-none and coveted by many. It was the crown jewel of the Imperial Expanse, offering top-quality education in all three Schools of magic: Spellcasting, Charmcrafting, and Ritualism. Each School had specializations and subspecializations, hundreds of research laboratories and what amounted to a monopoly on mainstream magical pedagogy. Moreover, it acted as the cornerstone for the Imperial Expanse's foreign policy, subverting the works of other civilizations and churning out thousands of able combatants each year. The average graduate from the Academy would be set for life, wanting not for power or money.
He caught his reflection in the mirror. Is that to be me, when I've graduated?
--
Dayan was broken from his reverie once more, this time by the sound of someone sitting down on the seat beside him. He turned to the left, and saw that someone was in fact, sitting down on the seat beside him. A specific someone, in fact—the girl with the suitcase.
His eyes flicked from her suitcase to her face, and watched her mouth opening, about to say something.
He noticed it instantly. The scenery outside the window, frozen as if the train tracks had stopped, suspended in time. The girl's body, kept in place not by an active clenching of the muscles, but a stillness of an object in motion taken from an inertial frame of reference—there was no way for her body to naturally maintain that kind of position, not without magical interference—and then he caught it.
A movement, a displacement of something caught the corner of his eye, and there he saw, superimposed upon his own reflection, a man with eyes like drowning, a suffocating infinite color from which there was no escape. Within him Dayan felt the same resonance with this half-reflection as he did with the suitcase, magnified trillionfold. When once before it was a deep certainty, now it was truth beyond all reason, a forceful, undeniable fundament upon which other beliefs were merely anchored upon.
Before the man Dayan felt less real, as if he were a comic drawn hastily on a napkin or the errant figment of a daydream gone by. It was a force deeper than the mere overwhelming of senses, it was something that connected to a deeper basis of qualitative experience from which consciousness and qualia would arise—it was the overwhelming of being, lesser ontologies quailing in the presence of sheer unrelenting power.
And then the man spoke.
"Dayan Farwall. Having remained pure of body and exceptionally pure of mind for twelve years, you are well-suited for what I will offer you. Your compatibility, while currently stellar, could potentially be stronger in the future. Despite this, I have intervened early to prevent your subordination to the inferior fate-design of this realm, which would make you ineligible for future offers."
Inferior fate-design? Was the girl some kind of trap, sprung on him by an otherworldly force?
The man continued. "I am not a demon, arcane spirit, or contracted being. I am not the Beckoning King, the Manaeater, the Spine, or any of their emissaries or agents. My offer is that of a simple transaction. I am bound by countless Curses, leaving me greatly diminished, a thin figment of what I once was. Take up a portion of my burdens, and in exchange receive a fraction of my power."
Dayan knew none of these names, nor whatever those creatures were. And yet, he believed the man to be speaking the truth with the same certainty that he knew he was alive and breathing. What could be so powerful as to diminish a being with this power? The thought terrified him, and excited him at the same time.
A glint entered the man's eye, almost amused. "Make no mistake. To you, my power may seem prodigious, but I am vastly diminished from what I once was. And my burdens, while manageable, will weigh heavily on you for the rest of your existence. Their difficulty will not be greater than what you can manage, nor greater than the value of the powers I impart, but you will likely suffer enormously, and require great sacrifices to mitigate their worst effects. Do you accept?"
The man was offering power, perhaps, or some way to escape this supposed subordination. What need would Dayan have for power? He was set to enter the Academy and leave powerful enough to raze cities and command armies, live comfortably for the rest of his life. And yet, his mind came back to the dust mote.
What would it mean, to be free? What price would he pay for freedom from the rote tedium of life, to tear free from the routine and rhythm dictated by the pulse of another's drums. And yet, this seemed like another yoke to be put upon him, some burden that would tie him down. What worth was there in exchange one master for another?
No. He was misunderstanding. The burdens were not equal—fate's designs were opaque, bending to the whimsy of a hidden master.
At least here, he would know who held the chain. And maybe in time, come to know how to sever it.
"I accept."
A silence like the calm before the storm fell on him. "So be it."
--
Rejoice, for you have been chosen by the Accursed. Bear his burdens well, for you will only have one chance.
Choose the nature of your compact.
[ ] Combat-Type – The eyes of the Accursed close, mood contemplative. "Very well. Good tidings, Cursebearer. May your freedom be what you had hoped for."
*Become a Combat-type Cursebearer, granted immense personal might at the cost of 3 Curses. You are mildly incompatible with this option, and will need to take an extra curse to compensate.
*Yours will be power sufficient to crack planets and shatter nations, to drown the oceans themselves in ash, blot out sun and stars, the fire and impact of a nuclear bombardment as immaterial as rain against your skin.
*Your power will include some means of travel between worlds, allowing you to depart this wretched realm.
*Ace magical school like it's nothing. A comfy quest of dumpstering those in your cohort and eventually ruling the kingdom. After finishing your education, you will likely have sufficient power and means to depose the Emperor. What you decide do from there will be up to you.
[ ] Progression-Type – The eyes of the Accursed settle on you like leaden weights. Briefly, you feel like drowning again, before the moment of scrutiny passes. "Good."
"If you survive, no power will be beyond you. In time, there will be no blade you cannot sunder, no force you cannot rout, no foe you cannot ruin, no throne you cannot claim. Take care that you do not become that which you despise."
*Become a Progression-type Cursebearer, granted the potential to attain power beyond all reason through ingenuity and effort. Due to your exceptional compatibility, this option will only cost a Crowning Curse and 1 additional Curse. What a steal!
*Receive only a modest boon of power to start, but you will almost certainly grow rapidly.
*The Crowning Curse will come to define most of your actions, as you struggle and rage against the indifference of a dying world.
*Should you survive the trials to come, you will almost certainly grow strong enough to plumb this realm of its secrets and overcome its true masters.
Choose the Curses you will bear.
[ ] The Geas of Indenture - Mortgage your future to pay for the present? The term of your service shall be no less than 937 octillion years. Immediately you will be transported to another world and given a task to complete. Nearly every task will fall into one of two forms: you will be required either to kill a predestined 'Chosen One' of some kind, or to conquer some amount of territory.
You will be granted full discretion in the completion of your tasks and there is no penalty whatsoever to slacking off provided you complete your mission within the generous time window allotted. Assassination tasks typically have a 100 - 500 year window, while conquest tasks usually have a 1,000 - 10,000 (or greater) year window, depending on the scope of the territory in question. Should you complete your mission early, you may choose to vacation in your current world for up to 10 more years before departing to the next task. Your assigned tasks will always be within your given capabilities to achieve. Failure to complete your task within the time window will result in death. You will not be assigned tasks that are totally abhorrent; assassination of a well-meaning hero is about as bad as it gets.
[ ] The Doom of Entropy – A straightforward curse. Entropy is the measure of the amount of energy unavailable to do work. As you progress and grow in your travels, you will find the amount of resources available for you to use squandered and diminished. Magical energy will be tied up in vicious sacrificial loops, spare intellect and processing power allocated to the arraying of minutiae. At the moment, it stays at a manageable 20% of your total resources. Left unchecked, it may grow quickly to consume you in your entirety.
[ ] Brand of the Wretched - A simple curse. All who meet you will be invested with a severe dislike bordering on hatred, perhaps not enough to provoke violence in civilized individuals, but more than sufficient for them to actively work against your interests. No one, not your closest friends, not your family, not even the Accursed himself, is immune to this effect. You can overcome this hatred by word and deed, but supernatural influence of any kind finds no purchase against the power of your Brand.
[ ] Affliction of Slumber - A curse of the body. No matter how powerful your physical form becomes, you will require at least sixteen hours of sleep every twenty-four hours. Missing even a single hour will result in severe physiological consequences. If enemies consistently interrupt your sleep, you will find yourself near-constantly disoriented and enervated. Your waking hours are the very stuff of life. With this choice, you surrender half your conscious existence, your very presence in the world, upon the altar of a Curse.
[ ] Brand of Conflict – A reasonably complex curse. All those who interact with you will be convinced that you are a member of a tribe or social group with which they have severe grievances against. This, depending on their disposition towards prejudice and group thought, may move someone to seek violence against you, but may also provoke nothing beyond mild dislike. In a private social setting, the effects of this Curse may not be very pronounced, but may cause extreme difficulty when speaking to a large audience, for example.
[ ] Affliction of Banality – All joyful experiences become muted, and toned to gray. Your personal enjoyment is severely hampered, losing 4/5ths of its intensity. This has no effect on negative experiences, or ones that cause suffering and misery.
[ ] Brand of the Unmemorable – Fade into the background, and be forgotten. When not in your presence, traces of you begin rapidly disappearing. Lose your foothold in the memories of others, and watch personal relationships fade into nothingness. This is exceptionally hard to mitigate, but easy enough to work around.
[ ] The Apocryphal Curse - "May you live in interesting times."
The challenges this presents will usually not be beyond your ability to overcome, but very occasionally you will be forced to dig deep and discover whether you are truly worthy of the Accursed's mantle. Remember: the greater the reprieve, the more terrible the chaos that follows. "Better to be a dog in times of peace, then a man in time of war."
*A Crowning Curse. Don't take it unless you have to.
[ ] The Unravelling Curse – "I am sorry."
Become charged with immense ontological weight. You will notice that your friends, your family, and even the contrivances of fate seem fake, like a plastic mask affixed half-heartedly to one's face. Your senses are not deceiving you—this is because they are fake.
This Curse causes the immediate and irreversible ego-death of all living entities that come into contact with you, becoming p-zombies in all senses of the word. This only works on beings with less weight than you, as their existences are consumed to fuel your continued largesse.
*A Crowning Curse.
Choose your Remittance.
[ ] Desuetude – Come into yourself, fully fledged.
The Accursed will pluck a version from yourself ten years into the future and facilitate a seamless merging, incorporating their skills, experiences, and techniques into yours while preventing identity drift. If you chose Progression, the Accursed will instead pick a version of yourself one hundred years into the future, but will gradually trickle in information at regularly interspaced intervals to prevent ego death.
This represents a massive increase in personal strength, leading to an instant mastery in your native world's art of Spellcasting as well as proficiencies in Charmcrafting and Ritualism. If you chose Progression, you will instead receive an instant mastery in all three systems of magic, as well as mastery in two other styles found into your travels to other continents: Dreamworking, and The Pyre.
*There's no guarantee that your magic system will be effective in other universes, so it would be best not to take this with Indenture.
*Mastery in Spellcasting gives you access to a wide array of unique effects, such as temporal acceleration, magical blasts strong enough to vaporize islands, and mindwiping.
*While all magic systems listed above (with exception to the Pyre) are considerably weaker individually and less versatile than the Noble Praxis or the Skycloud Eye, you are likely to find virtuous interactions between systems to let them be worth more than the sum of their parts.
*As for the Pyre, it will require some metaphysical fuel that you may not find access to during your stay at the academy.
*Additionally, your memories represent a reasonably-sized boon, giving you expertise on the generally abstruse Imperial bureaucracy and first-mover's advantage on events yet to happen.
[ ] Dark, Yet Full of Stars – Sight beyond sight.
Gain access to the Skycloud Eye, a metaphysical organ that embodies unbounded progression and vistas yet seen. Ponder, on experiences that shape you, and the dreams you concern yourself with. With an eye of endless clouds, you will never have to ask "Where?" or "How?" again.
*This organ gives you an intuitive sense for the optimal path to take to achieve your goals. This might lead you to do nonsensical things at first, such as minorly adjusting the placement of a pebble or scrawling a number on the side of a public bathroom. However, this sense always brings you closer to your goal, in a roundabout way.
*By expending memories and valuable experiences, you may engorge your Eye with energy to gain a detailed list of steps to optimize your personal values and internal self. This list will always align with the spirit and intent of your desires, as well as conforms to morally acceptable standards of the time. You do not know where these memories and experiences go.
*Lose sight in one eye. Restoration will require the sponsorship of a being on par with a High Cursebearer.
*Gain an insight into the other Metaphysical Organs, such as the Broken Glass Heart and the Lungs of Apoptosis. You have an instinctive knowledge of where their wielders are are, what they can do, and what they've done.
*They know where you are. And they're coming.
[ ] Lament – Pick up a lost sword, and swing.
A thousand thousand lifetimes lived, a million million friends lost. They were real, undeniably so, and each artifice made to suffer is another name you will carve onto the cenotaph you make from this creature's heart. Shed a tear, and fill your blade with the weight of your sorrow. You may only take this remittance if you have taken the Unravelling Curse or the Brand of the Unmemorable.
*A deep and mournful song rends your spirit. Shear away the supernatural and cleave towards the only thing that holds you together.
*The exact details of this system are opaque to you. You get the vague feeling that if you take this option, there will be further opportunities to unlock other forms of magic.
*Mitigation – The Things We Leave Behind: Someone will remember you. Someone will be real.
[ ] Homecoming – What it takes to sever your chains.
Access the Praxis, the Accursed's personal casting style. A style of magic that emanates completely from the self, relies completely upon the self, and is developed completely by the self. Advancement in the Praxis depends little on talent, much on effort and self-sacrifice. A dream of fairness, defiant against an uncaring universe. And power enough, in time, to make the universe care.
The Praxis is renowned for its limitless potential and complete omni-dimensional reliability. Where all other magics fail, the Praxis operates with unerring consistency. It excels at inflicting and preventing harm, but struggles in matters of renewal or restoration.
*It's the Praxis. The Imperial Praxis, to be precise. More growth potential than any other option on this list.
*Not much immediate power, but are you really in all that much danger?
*Do you have the willpower?
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Rihaku
The Internet
If trying to munchkin items, the best options would be those that are commercially unviable but still powerful in the context of Kazuma's cheat. For example, a weapon that inflicts massive damage to everyone it touches, even through gauntlets - perfect for Gate of Babylon, useless for the average adventurer. An orb of ooze that immobilizes anything it comes into contact with, but is so sticky that it can't be properly launched without Charity. A Ring of Power that grants massive bonuses to all stats, but only for characters for whom the absolute value of their Luck stat is in excess of 300. These are extremely convenient, but that can be justified through Fortune's smile.
Teleport and Illusion / Countermagic seem like more immediately useful utility than any of invisibility, silence or weather control, but most importantly Kazuma wants immediate power now, because his long-term potential is already covered by Progression. I would encourage something like a Teleport / Countermagic / Wind Curtain build over SAVEing in this case, though the full utility build is probably slightly better, in that it gives him the most immediate tools to combine with his other skills and other party members.
Teleport and Illusion / Countermagic seem like more immediately useful utility than any of invisibility, silence or weather control, but most importantly Kazuma wants immediate power now, because his long-term potential is already covered by Progression. I would encourage something like a Teleport / Countermagic / Wind Curtain build over SAVEing in this case, though the full utility build is probably slightly better, in that it gives him the most immediate tools to combine with his other skills and other party members.
- Location
- The Middle of the Howling Wilderness
Absolutely love this Crowning Curse.
My initial argument was that, since he took the Dragon Meat for immediate growth, he can get Advanced Magic and it's unlocked utility spells as part of his immediate power, unless it's not going to be used on him.
This is irrelevant if the additional utility unlocks aren't as useful as the ones already available, but that it would happen before he used anything was a major point in the argument.
Rihaku
The Internet
It's possible, but without knowing how many levels (and what the level:SP conversion rate is) the dragon meat is actually worth, Kazuma should rather not risk it, especially since actually buying those utility spells will require additional SP on top of the 7 needed for Advanced Magic.
Bravo Talace, I loved it. The glimmers of the setting are interesting and fun, the magic systems and shape of the world are charming at first blush.
I laughed a bit at the Accursed popping in to stop the first friendship that could grow into more with Dayan.
I think you did a great job balancing the curses on offer, and capturing the melancholy of the Accursed.
I laughed a bit at the Accursed popping in to stop the first friendship that could grow into more with Dayan.
I think you did a great job balancing the curses on offer, and capturing the melancholy of the Accursed.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
I mean, good reflexes mean he could, in fact, cook the boomerangs by launching and then Pocketing them. As for the recharge, good catch.
Strength-based wings on an 'angel' bodyplan aren't entirely likely in any case, but good thought!
Ah, you're thinking more clearly than I am at the moment. I had been making nods in that direction, but was a bit caught up in the 'entertainingly cursed items' subgame. My own twists on those:
*Perpetual Dispelling Fireball. Made by a wizard who thought a sustained magic-eating explosion would be the perfect weapon, then realized he couldn't control it. Strong enough to kill dragons. Previously contained by a special lead box.
*Silencing Paralyzing Sundering Entangling Soporific Goo. In a cheap plastic container prone to cracking. Aqua might be able to cure it if it gets on you.
*The Ring of Rebellion. A strange artifact that caps the wearer's effective Luck at -100, but adds 30 to all other stats.