No! No more OaF until Hunger eats his vegetables picks some potential! OaF II is pleanty, just take Ring or an upgrade for Realm of Evening after.
[X] "I wish for the Seraph's grace." [X] "I wish for my junior's exaltation." [X] "I wish for the Seraph's guidance." [X] Night's Ambition
I think the most important thing to learn from this Apocryphal proc is that the power curve should not be our first concern in planning for this curse. more conservative, safer planning is a better answer.
No! No more OaF until Hunger eats his vegetables picks some potential! OaF II is pleanty, just take Ring or an upgrade for Realm of Evening after.
[X] "I wish for the Seraph's grace."
[X] "I wish for my junior's exaltation." [X] "I wish for the Seraph's guidance." [X] Night's Ambition
I think the most important thing to learn from this Apocryphal proc is that the power curve should not be our first concern in planning for this curse. more conservative, safer planning is a better answer.
I wasn't being particularly reasonable; I lust after Ruling ring very badly.
My actual argument to not choose Favor is that I like Exalt more, but I'm very much on the fence. I'd be thrilled with any result here (assuming that all roads lead to Guidance)
You absolute fool! Those allies of yours are nothing, and you are less than nothing. All of your work is absolutely meaningless! Unlike you, I have the power of Sacrifice! I have given everything for this moment! I have given blood, force, conviction, determination, and even my selfhood! I am the vengeful arrow of a god who died eons ago, and my flight cannot be altered! Once the critical trajectory is achieved, there will be nothing but destruction for you and your stupid Village Hidden in the Thread shinobi friends!
Destruction? Death? I don't fear it. Even if you strike me down, others will inherit my will and come to forth to oppose you, and those who inherit their will after them, and so on into eternity! You stand alone, Birdsie. That is a heavy burden. But you cannot stand against an infinite eternity of those who possess Love instead of Sacrifice. You must win again and again in order to not fall. But we only have to win once and it is over.
I will spare you the drawn-out pain of such a contest.
An interesting speech on modern ethics and how they relate to being a Cursebearer. Of course, its contents won't save you. My Omakegan allows me unsurpassed reactionary power. There is nothing you can do in order to stop me. This post of yours has a meager and pathetic wordcount of around 5k. I will not only surpass everything about it, but then I'll also destroy the original! There will be nothing but Fanworkyomi!
I was actually hoping for a more substantial response from at least one person, since it's really the most original and actually Transaction-related thing I've written in the past few days. And I'm sure there are plenty of productive places to disagree with me, since I'm not by any means well read when it comes to ethics. The thread is treacle-slow and extremely low on argumentative effort right now, so I'm now sure why I thought somebody would be willing to get in an argument with me.
It seems like reactions don't really get any airtime anyways, so I'm more posting for fun at this point than anything else. Can't suppose that I blame anybody for that, though, since I never really enjoyed reading reactions either. It takes a lot of effort to make them even moderately entertaining. It's sort of a zen feeling to write several thousand words that nobody has any interest in. Which makes sense, since they're fragmentary, recycled content instead of something consistent, linear, and cohesive. Writing a proper omake does have the advantage of the subject/story kind of carrying your attention through the whole thing, though I always found that was cancelled out by my unfortune need to stop and deliberate. Reactions are harder without the former, but also much easier without the latter. My respect for Unelemental's 60k reaction drop way back when has gone up, though, since a lot of consecutive wordcount without literally meaningless padding is hard.
That's actually quite favorable for Kazuma, since a competent Cursebearer achieves the power level of your average God without too much trouble.
More importantly it means that the Arch Wizard -> Fateweaver -> Cursebearer plan is actually a legitimate route, since it's likely that there aren't too many more things he can do in the short term (the next five years) to earn another accolade meaningful enough for a unique class. What is there?
Killing the demon lord might be enough for a uncommon class, but not a unique one since people have done it before. Unless "Unique" doesn't actually mean that more than one person can't have it, which I guess is actually probably the case given what you said that one time about someone else fooling the system into thinking that they were a Cursebearer, though that was only a hypothetical.
I'd bet that overcoming/destroying The Celestial Bureaucracy (big Nameless energy) would also get you one. And probably sufficiently unique/powerful/odd advancements gained and developed with Progression would work, though if you already have such a thing it'd probably be more effective to focus it for a TSH-giving addendum instead of taking a class based around it. Kazuma isn't really a hardcore specialist in any given area, since it's not his style, so that's right out. The only area that might be useful in is getting a unique Magic Class, which in my mind is probably how most of the setting's highest-tier mages would avoid capping out. Just develop a focused enough build in one area of magic, commit a lot of effort to a personal masterwork in your specialty, and leverage your greatest personal achievement for a specialized post-Arch Wizard magic class so you avoid capping out. I'd bet that it takes a really long time, a lot of commitment, and probably synergistic efforts between several classes, not just Arch Wizard, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's once again too much effort when Cursebearer is already right there.
Praxis too good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How exactly does class switching work? I assume you don't get reset, but I don't know what you get to keep/how difficult changing is/whether your level stays constant or is reset or is consistently tracked but only within each class, etc.
A very interesting and prudent trickster build! Upgrading Mold Earth is a good idea, it's a very powerful spell that Kazuma is likely to use a whole lot.
Nice! I'm glad that you're seeing what I'm seeing. I just think that the versatility of Mold Earth is really high, and the depth that it has for clever exploitation is really suited to Kazuma's proclivities and strengths. With Counter Magic, Paralyze, and Basic Illusion, he's got extremely high coverage and really only lacks direct wide-area firepower, which is a good "hole" to have in your build when your Class primarily consists of your adventurer card shoveling handfuls of offensive elemental spells directly into your mouth.
Incidentally, my ranking of the other default spells:
-Freeze: I assume this is only useful for existing liquid, and you need something like Freeze Gust or Ray of Frost to ice-out other things with any real degree of effectiveness and range. Ice isn't a bad element, persay, but almost everything you would want to do with it would be better to do with Earth or Paralysis (Petrification). The exceptions are creation and combat in water. I'm assuming that none of these spells actively summon a bunch of Ice ex nihilo, just being applications of coldness or limited Ice projectiles? If I had to guess, summoning and shaping a bunch of ice is probably just locked behind upgrading both Ice and Water spell lines.
Creating and shaping Ice is nice because you don't have to worry about structure and initial material as much as you do for Earth, though one of the strengths of Earth is that you don't need to create any, just use what's already there. Ice is also much better than Earth in Water, since you can use the applications of Cold directly on the medium you're fighting in to get your attacks and defenses. You can't really use it for a lot of the utility effects that you can get with Earth, the only notable advantages it has being better temperature control, refrigeration, and better water walking. Those can all be accomplished by creative use of the basic spells without substantial investment, so I think that it's not really worth pursuing.
-Water: Useful! Hydrostream looks like the most threatening of the spells we start out with, though Kazuma is probably better suited by Creating Water directly into his portals for a while and using them to fire it out, since they have better input/output control and scaleability. Water is mostly good for drinking and fighting fires, though when combined with the right uses of Mold Earth it can really ruin people's days. Mud is good clean fun! Water spells might be useful for crowd control, but I think that Mold Earth handles it better. There's no real need to invest in this, except to possibly upgrade Create Water when he has a spare point. I would recommend to Kazuma to simply empty out spare mana as water into Charity whenever he wants using Create Water, since eventually that will leave him with a huge bastion of it to use to slice things apart, knock them away, fight fires, hydrate, etc. using Charity's ejection power.
The only exception is that the path to producing other liquids, like acid or poison, or if you're really fun, cool stuff like Wax or Honey or weird colloidal suspensions. I think that these gag effects have their places in terms of utility, but most of them do what another element can already do, but worse. Unless you plan to specialize in one of them, which Kazuma definitely won't.
-Fire: Meh. Light campfires, burn shit, cook, cauterize a wound, bake pottery, commit arson. Fire is necessary to have as an element, but its primary value is offense, which...it's more indiscriminate and slower than Lightning. Explosion magic is powerful, no doubt, but making its destructive capabilities match Counter Magic + Mold Earth against almost any reinforced fortification or target requires being an extreme specialist. You could argue that Explosions are good for general disruption, but I'd rather have the precision damage of Chain Lightning. Leave explosions to Megumin.
-Wind: Gas-based attacks can have really high effectiveness in certain situations, but honestly the main reason to invest in this would just be to get towards flight/movement enhancement and disrupt flying enemies. Wind is a good secondary choice for barriers or knocking projectiles out of the air/their paths. You can use it to make fire even better as an offensive tool, but that's another specialist path that basically ends in Explosion territory anyways. If you're smart and understand physics to some degree, you can pull tricks like easily grounding flyers or using vacuums to block energy-based attacks, but grounding fliers is probably better done with direct lightning attacks and stopping fire and lightning is probably better done with earthen walls. So, yeah, it's mostly flight. And other movement-enhancement magic, if you can swing it. I would also guess that Sound-based effects are gated behind this element, but those are another specialty path that I don't think serves Kazuma's goals.
-Lightning: Powerful, debilitating, precise, and most importantly: very, very fast. Good against almost every type of enemy, with the exception of being unusable any time you're in water. The only secondary use I can think of is using magnetism to mess with metal-based equipment, but that's extremely niche, and metal-effects are probably gated behind Earth anyways. Light effects might also be gated behind this, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Air or Water instead. I would take this purely for the offensive potential.
-Extra: There are lots of divergent specialized elemental effects that are likely to be gated behind sufficient advancement or upgrading of certain things. A lot of useful effects (like healing) are likely to be within the domain of other Magic-type classes, but Aqua should have most of the important ones handled. One thing I am surprised to not see is effects based on pure force, though I suppose they might be just another path to unlock.
Generally, I think Earth + Lightning gets the job done, with allowances for secondary "pure" spells with high utility. Aqua has got Kazuma covered as far as Water goes, and for Fire and Wind the given spells should suffice. This is literally only going off of the things we have here: I'm sure that Arch Wizards have a bunch of different paths they can buy from (Enchanting, Summoning, and Spell Creation come to mind). Time will tell what else there is available. I'm sure Wiz will be a somewhat adequate mentor!
If the Accursed is offering Transactions in the Wormverse, it's probably not to Parahumans! They're fundamentally unstable and are basically being directly brainfucked by an evil alien. It seems much more in keeping with The Accursed's style to select someone without even the potential to trigger, wait for them to be sufficiently resolved, and spring the Transaction on them. If I were him, I'd also demand Geas of Indenture, since being a huge anomaly is super noticeable, and also you wouldn't want a bunch of government thinkers to try to scry you and then immediately bite it, causing some instant hostility problems.
I think he started off at too much of a disadvantage, here. Any sensible person would have known not to pick a Crowning Curse that seemed too good to be true, but it was too late for this guy, since he started off in Brockton Bay already! Truly a casualty of his own circumstances, and, in that way, it's like he has the Curse of Hubris anyways.
"Oh yeah, Brockton Bay for Octillions of Years, what could go wrong?"
Where other Cursebearers would have to muck about with the ordeals of the Decimator's Affliction, Affliction of Slumber, or Brand of the Wretched, all Jera needed to take was the Curse of the Brocktonite, the Geas of Indenture, and the Doom of Rivalry and live an exciting urban adventure in a thousand-billion superhero worlds, doing nothing but fighting his rivals until the bitter end. How could that possibly go wrong? It was pure genius.
Imagine being offered complete freedom from the death world that is Earth Bet, and more specifically from the nightmare realm of Brockton Bay, and instead of choosing to sleep twice as long every day and have everyone hate you on sight, you choose to stay in Brockton Bay. Wait, maybe I read that wrong. He didn't start there at all!
I can't imagine not being from Brockton Bay and still deciding to go there either, though.
An exciting urban adventure in a thousand-billion superhero worlds? No, that's what 5+ stages of Conjunctional Indenture/Brocktonite mitigation looks like. You don't get to have that. Your choices are Brockton Bay or death for the next several trillion years.
It was like a dream come true - instead of curses, he believed he received a sandbox to play in, and the Accursed's Remittance was nothing if not a plastic shovel and bucket for making sandcastles.
He says this, but later on it comes out that it's just Bone Magic? And not even one of the cool kinds, just basically souped-up osteokinesis. Like, sure, I guess his physical stats can scale with bone juice drinking. But none of the feats it has are conceptual, so he gets crushed no problem by everyone relevant in the setting, since the remittance is indistinguishable from a mid-tier Parahuman power. Why? I know we've already established that this dude has terrible judgement, but my god.
On the third day, Jera realized it would be most prudent to acquire some form of official support or join a parahuman team. More importantly, he needed a stable income. With his power of unbounded Progression, as well as a modest combat skill, most teams and job providers would hire him in an eager heartbeat! Unfortunately, he was completely wrong. When he posted an advertisement on PHO regarding his capabilities, he was laughed out of his field as an arrogant quack. Despondent, he left the relative safety of his hiding place in order to buy milk and found a disemboweled cashier, six murdered patrons, and another dead Cursebearer at the nearest 7/11.
Who needs a Crowning Curse when you basically live your whole life with an unmitigated Curse of the Idiot Ball?
Also, this is too many dead Cursebearers. They aren't all sharing the same Brockton Bay, since there are an infinite number of the fucking place. Did the Accursed just drive-by empower like 100 Progression-types at the same time and just let them loose? Maybe he kept making offers, and the people kept accepting and then making the same bad decision of taking Curse of the Brocktonite, so he felt he couldn't stop until someone finally declined it?
Theoretically, The Accursed only offers Curses to those who can bear them. I'm failing to see how Jera is even remotely in this category.
When finally, weariness setting upon him from all of the conflict and fighting of the last several days, Jera reached the Parahuman Response Team Headquarters, a number of clarion alarms rang across the city. As he looked to a hardware shop next to him, into a set of TVs on the storefront, he saw an important announcement playing out.
So he attempted to find Armsmaster's subordinate and second-in-command of the local Protectorate, Miss Militia. He found her in the hospital, standing next to the custodial closet, but when he got close, the door suddenly opened. A little, grinning blonde girl and a wickedly-smiling Johnny Depp with a goatee and a leather belt full of knives, razors, and a butcher's cleaver swiftly chloroformed the gun-toting heroine and then pulled her into their little bubble of murder before slamming the door shut.
The Accursed must have only offered him extremely bad Remittances if this was the selection that Jera chose, my god.
It all makes sense! The Curse of the Brocktonite Cursebearers are the ones he uses to dump away all his shitty Remittance rolls, saving the good ones for the prospective Cursebearers that he has actual hope for.
He raised an open hand. Reality warped, bent in a circle, and then hiccuped, as a Beretta 9M was suddenly disgorged from nowhere and dropped into the Accursed's clutching fingers. "I will give you a gun that automatically shoots Aster," the Accursed said.
Skitter perked up, gaining a sudden interest in the conversation. "Did you just say you'll give me a gun that solves every problem in the universe?"
Why is it always the baby murder, Taylor? Honestly, the worst part of Curse of the Brocktonite is probably how permanently relevant she is, since she's generally either unbearably self righteous or incredibly horny for terrible life choices, usually both. Just an endless future, filled with Taylor being a stubborn jackass.
Bonesaw grinned and pulled out a device that looked similar to a TV remote. She aimed it heavenwards then pressed a button in the middle. "Behold...!"
Suddenly, a woman in military garb dropped from the ceiling. She was covered in blood, and parts of her appeared to have been taken from the bodies of the Cursebearers that Jera kept seeing over the months. He stepped back in shock, unable to comprehend this sight.
"War Crime!" Bonesaw introduced the new abomination. "It has parts of your Cursebearer friends, too! She can shoot guns at you, but the guns keep Progressing into better forms with each fight!"
Why would absorbing the marrow of a parahuman give him their powers? Powers aren't inherent to the essence of the Parahuman like their body's stats are, they're just mediated through their brain by an alien.
"War Crime" is a highly accurate lampoon of the kind of faux-cleverness that informs a lot of Wildbow's writing. Props.
...Jera's having a nightmare while high off his ass, isn't he? Cursebearers...don't work like that.
Is "War Crime" also suffering from all the Curses that those Cursebearers had? Finally, a parahuman Cursebearer who can actually complete their Geas tasks, even if they have 3 of them to handle at once.
Ah yes, the good ol' "fade away into mist because I'm done talking with you."
So Jera burned a reset, huh? I didn't think that was part of his Remittance.
This only further validates my theory about The Accursed using Curse of the Brocktonite Cursebearers as a dumping ground for bad Remittances. Not only do you have to stay in Brockton Bay forever with a terrible
As for the trinkets, he's got them, but I haven't settled on all of them. I have four, semi-valid ideas so far. It's surprisingly hard to come up with, "a magic item, but it has deleterious side effects that render it unusable." Or maybe I'm out of ideas. I'll accept suggestions, for the record.
1: A Cape which ties around the neck. It hardens reactively to the durability and rigidity of solid steel when struck, but also assumes the appropriate weight, and doesn't relax until a full minute has passed since it was hit.
2: A shield that is intangible to matter that touches its front face, and twice as resistant to blows struck from its handle side.
3: A necklace that makes other people want to take it off of you, but makes you want to not take it off
4: A potion that renders you totally intangible to matter and energy for ten seconds.
5: A potion that temporarily grants perfect heat resistance.
6. A staff which fires a randomly directed copy of any spell the user casts.
7. A glove that enhances your sense of touch on the hand it's on by 10x
8. A wooden practice sword that is Completely Ordinary In Every Way. It's a steel sword.
9. An arrow that conjures a quiver around it...snugly
10. A potted plant that is constantly blooming and scattering a fine aerosolized pollen which has a sweet scent and calms you down.
11: A pair of daggers that always teleport back to each other. The teleport location is three feet above the other dagger, and the teleportation isn't consistently one specific dagger.
12: A pair of fake bunny ears that make you faster, but quarter the friction on the part of you or your clothes that contacts the ground.
13: A wineglass that refills itself with the last potion that was poured into it, but any water in the recipe is replaced with wine.
14: A carved wooden duck that will distract any nearby beings for a full 10 seconds when it is picked up or put down.
15: A fountain pen that neatly prints whatever you write with it-- at five times normal writing speed.
16: A sachet of glitter powder. Even a small amount shines with incredible reflective brightness.
17: A pair of boots that allow the user to jump an extra time in midair, but not lift both feet off the ground.
18. A glass sphere that shows your future in it--so long as that future is also you staring into the sphere.
19: A mirror that gives almost accurate common sense advice.
20: A spyglass made of copper that zooms in and heats up more and more the longer you look through it.
21: A whistle that makes birds think the whistler has food when blown.
22: A soup spoon with a monomolecular-edge handle.
23: A glass phial that gradually increases the pressurization of its contents.
24: A pair of shoes that decrease the sounds the wearer makes to 1/100th but increases them to 100x for anyone who can see the shoes.
Disconcerting was the fact that for all of those days, Gabriel's parents not once came home. There was a phone call from his father, who mentioned there was a bad storm in Milan. It was apparently so encompassing and destructive they needed to stay in the city. Prolessarch theorized it was one of the early portents of their dark future, the coming of magic and the unfortunate implications contained therein.
The Apocryphal Curse was beginning to do its job, apparently.
Welp, your parents are beyond your reach now, and probably also doomed to a horrific death if you don't go save them post-haste. Of course, while you're doing that, something bad will happen to your friends or girlfriend, something that you could've prevented if you didn't leave.
See, easy! The Apocryphal Curse can just yank him around however it likes, since the most important thing in the world to him is a bunch of dispersed baseline humans. But it won't kill all of them. No, instead it'll use them to bait him into terrible positions against his Rivals over and over and over again. And maybe he can stop them before anything bad happens by using harsher, more effective methods, but then he'll just be correspondingly slowed by the Doom of Judgement! What a good time.
Props for training hard for several days, though. If there's anything that'll let him even remotely keep up with the Apocryphal Curse, it's properly exploiting Prowess.
The undead Archwizard, for better or for worse, consumed literature at a world-shattering rate of one page for every second and became bored if not provided with something else to occupy him. The lich claimed modern television was 'too slow' for him, so that wasn't a solution. Getting into cooking as a hobby was difficult as the lich's physical manifestation did not possess tastebuds, although Prolessarch remarked he could make some with time.
Prolessarch is truly the best, look at this reading rate! I mean, I don't know how actually useful it is for him to be haphazardly devouring a bunch of information instead of spending his time on Prowess-boosted magic research, but I guess it's the sort of thing that might pay dividends eventually? At the very least he can assess and coallate information to be passed through the Eye.
Is Prolessarch going to also be initiating himself into Surgecraft or Idolatry? That's what I would have him be doing instead of reading, especially since it allows them to split the two and have an Idolatry setup become effective much more quickly.
"How hard is it to make a phylactery?" Gabriel asked.
"I know what you're thinking," the Prolessarch said, closing the notebook with an audible sigh. There was a moment of tension, before Prolessarch looked up. "You want to make all of your friends immortal, so they're not in danger. Like me, right?"
Clever, but not clever enough! Taking the soul out of someone's body and putting it in a separate container will definitely not protect them from the Apocryphal Curse. Actually, it might make it worse. Who wants to bet that Phylacteries are insanely valuable materials when used to fuel sacrificial magic?
"Hey. Chin-up!" the Prolessarch said, before Gabriel could speak in a demure manner or do anything else. "There's nothing wrong with wanting your friends to be safe, and there's nothing wrong with being an immortal lich! It's really in vogue where I'm from, you know? Pretty much everyone does it. Anyway, if you want your friends to become liches and get phylacteries like me, I'll need to teach them the Magic of the Diagram, which is difficult. I don't think the odds are good they'll be compatible. You? You're a Cursebearer, of course you'd be compatible, but we're talking about… unaugmented, baseline humans. No Ego Barrier, no magical attainments or talents, no psychic presence, or anything?"
Not having those things is actually a bonus towards their ability to use the Diagram! If I remember correctly, it takes up too much space in the person's spiritual existence for anything else to fit without some real crazy modifications, and it doesn't play nice with other systems in the first place, having its power decreased by their presence alone! Normally I would've been ragging on Gabriel for not going for the Diagram right away, but I'd bet it's much weaker here than it otherwise would be, due to the sudden profusion of like 2+ new competing magical systems. And they're systems which can't be gotten rid of with normal diagram methods like genocide, because they're being fundamentally supported by that eldritch nightmare! That could be a reason for Prolessarch to not learn either of the new magics, since they would compete with the Diagram.
Wait, no that doesn't make sense, since he's already learned another non-Diagram system. Maybe that rule doesn't apply for some reason? I guess it could be a restriction set by the EFB universe itself and not apply otherwise.
"It's definitely a good idea, but I don't think we should focus on the Diagram for now. It's my absolute favorite magic - don't get me wrong - but I've almost finished the Surgecraft notes," the Prolessarch confessed, opening the notebook and tapping his pencil at the bottom of the page. There was the conclusion of a long string of equations there, concluding in a great number of numerical factors and letters that Gabriel wasn't confident he understood. "I have the exact formula needed to initiate you into the art. Sadly, I appear to be largely incompatible, as I do not have flesh, blood, or organic cells. I'll need you to bring me some reagents for that, however."
Well, that answer my questions about Prolessarch's potential Surgecraft. He should still be able to use Idolatry, though, especially since it doesn't apparently even require a catalyst.
Gabriel nodded in understanding. "Let me get dressed," he said. He walked into his room and got into some comfortable, yet good-looking clothes, and then went back out. "What do you need?"
"Here, this is all I'll need." The Prolessarch ripped a page out of the notebook and handed it to Gabriel. "I've read some books to make sure the chemicals are right, and this all should be fine."
The Cursebearer looked down at the list.
- Freshwater (150ml)
- Leaded gasoline (50ml) or normal gasoline (45ml) and a few grams of lead or another heavy metal
- Green-apple flavored vape juice (100ml)
- Depleted uranium shavings (negligible amount)
- Diet Jolt Cola (250ml)
- Ethidium Bromide (250ml)
- Brackish water (500ml)
- Mineral water (500ml)
- Water spiced with tetrahydrocannabinol (100ml)
Luckily enough, one of his friend's mother worked in a laboratory in a nearby town, which meant the uranium would be relatively easy to get - sure, it would raise eyebrows, but there was nothing that couldn't be explained with, 'I'm doing some experiments for my science homework.' It was important not to mention it was being done with a skeletal professor, though.
How exactly is it that you believe laboratories work?
Do you think they just have depleted uranium...laying around? And if they did, they would give some to you, no questions asked? A professional chemist is going to take some random chemical from their workplace and just hand it off to someone else's child?
The only result that you would ever, ever get when asking a friend's parent for a sample of depleted uranium is "absolutely not", at the very least because it would open them up to the possibility of a tremendous lawsuit. Even if depleted uranium isn't usually significantly radioactive, mercury is still a toxic metal. Gabriel would probably have better luck ordering directly from a chemical supply company himself.
The Prolessarch hovered after him, hand reaching into a sack in the inner portion of his robe as he rummaged through and pulled out a wand. "Look, all I'm saying is, if you don't meet the Doom of the Rival and the Apocryphal Curse, eventually, they're going to come to your doorstep."
"What if the memories weren't there in the first place, and that man was just… controlled by one of my curses?" Gabriel theorized, and at that, a chill of horror went through him. Had he just killed an innocent man?
Well, that combat wrapped up nicely. Spend your XP wisely!
Interesting to see Gabriel misunderstand how his Curses work, though it is interesting to see him go right to the theory that allows him to feel the maximal possible guilt directly after killing someone. The Doom of Judgement is going to be really punishing for him, isn't it?
"No. That's idiotic. Your curses aren't omnipotent." The Prolessarch moved with superhuman celerity, turning the man over and taking out the knife. He then dug a finger into the gory crater in the man's face and started moving it around with sickening slurps. "You're right when it comes to one thing, though. He was controlled by something." The Prolessarch yanked out what appeared to be a bloodstained, beeping microchip connected to a bunch of red and yellow circuitry.
What? It's not that the Curses don't do things like that because it's hard to do, or something. They don't do it because it's explicitly not the way that they work. An appropriate Curse could totally directly wipe a person's mind and turn them into a hostile puppet that tries to kill you, no sweat.
The brain microchip is weird, considering that the guy was firing at them with a magic gun. I guess his Rival uses magitech? That's somebody that you're probably going to want to kill quickly, before they either get smart enough to kill you in one of the many easy ways, or get prepared enough to be unassailable while they continually deploy mediocre strategies to kill you until the get lucky.
I guess the puppet once being an innocent person doesn't make a difference to the Doom of Judgement, since Gabriel followed the rules of reasonable engagement pretty closely, and the faux-mailman was basically doomed/dead anyways.
I don't have a great memory for Aeira's non-stealth feats, so indulge me for a bit.
Shadowcord is definitely a good aesthetic, since a cord can be a rope or a thread or a wire, and therefore a weave, and shadows can be softer or darker, obscure to different degrees, and even be one/two-dimensional! And if it's a Shadow Cord, maybe it can even interact with the shadows of other things to affect those things themselves. Just ShadowCord alone makes Aeria a top-tier assassin, really. And Scout. And eventually a really threatening battlefield combatant.
Leaving aside her really strong personal stealth, she could weave together a bunch of threads into larger puppeted constructs that envelop and trap enemies, or use ShadowCords as whips and severing lassos. In fact, since shadows are two-dimensional, she might be able to use individual cords as perfectly severing weightless monofilament wire, which is just nasty; just manifest one incredibly long one at torso height and sweep it across the whole battlefield like some Gin Ichimaru Bankai shit. I bet with some serious practice she might be able to pull off some of the thread shenanigans that Doflamingo gets up to, as well, especially the wire action movement, though the whole "grabbing clouds" thing obviously wouldn't work. Though I guess she might be able to, if she can change exactly how tangible the ShadowCords are between "real object" and "illusion of the absence of light".
And that's not to mention that she's theoretically The Threnody Sorceress, right? I don't know exactly what that entails, but my intuition is telling me that it might make her SurgeCraft also double as ShadowChords! Maybe she'll be able to play music on strings made of her element to create some sort of effects? It's not really clear, and I don't remember if there's any Word of Rihaku.
So yeah, there's plenty of really cool stuff you could do with her in a fight scene. The trouble would probably just be imbuing it with that Rihaku Flavor.
Backlit by a colossal explosion of iridescent light from the increasingly distant battlefield, she sprang from cover to cover, laying taunt lines of her element as she went in search of targets. Vibrations fed back to her line's source, and garroting those foolish enough to entangle themselves was quite simple. Artillery and summoned creatures followed her efforts, as the legion's auxiliaries tried to flush her from her favored terrain and box her in with disposable monsters.
Ah yeah, now that's what I'm talking about. I didn't consider her using ShadowCord like a spider's web for sensory purposes, but I probably should have. I wonder if significant sources of light bolster her abilities by creating actual shadows instead of the neutral darkness of nighttime? Maybe that's one of those crazy Aobaru/Aeira combo synergies, since it's easy to image that the shadow produced by the light of a sufficiently intense burst of VigorFlame would also be enhanced.
...we've seen options for both Letrizia and Aeira to become Sorceresses. Is there something we could do to make Aobaru a Sorcerer? Maybe that's locked-off by his chosen one status, though, since it seems like the natural order of things prevents Sorcery, and he's really tangled up in fate. Or maybe making him a Sorcerer is part of the effect that Exaltation would have?...nah, I'm still not willing to risk that.
Tired and unpleasantly dirty, she clung to the hoodoo, strung up by cords thrust deep into the rock. Below, a ranger in Adorie's employ crept along the floor of the badland, nigh invisible and without a trace. Aeira was only able to follow the man because of the tether she had to his boot, tied before he set out from their camp.
Man, my list didn't come anywhere close to complete in terms of potential ShadowCord uses, did it? Thread-based abilities are really so useful, it's crazy.
Now I kinda want to see a picture of Aeira napping in a ShadowCord hammock on the beach. Sounds cozy.
Aeira gasped, abruptly free from the trance, and shut her eyes, casting out Shadowcord in every direction to replace her sight. She pulled herself airborne to avoid the creature's next attack, and then swung around the nearest hoodoo to build momentum. The ranger and the golem engaged again while she came around for a blow, blind but for her element. Stitches along her chest and arm grew taut all at once, adding a last burst of speed badly needed by her heirloom sword. Grandad's steel found purchase, and she felt rather than saw the scratchy explosion of rock and salt as the spider's abdomen broke under her blade. A secondary detonation tossed both fighters away from the summon, and then there was only the clattering stones falling back to earth.
Ah yes, very redolent of some Peter Parker combat techniques. She's not particularly suited to wisecracking, which I hope will change. Right now I'm hoping that the kids will all get some pleasant screentime in the Realm of Evening, maybe even another fun training session! It's theme is well-suited to Aeira's, too, so she might get a burst of insight.
SCENE: TWO MEMBERS OF THE CURSEBEARER'S ASSOCIATION SIT DOWN FOR THEIR THIRD ANNUAL CHAT
"So yeah, in my experience the most efficient method for indirect mitigation is to just choose not to care about your Curse at all. it's like all your problems in life, really. You get hungry, you get tired, your pen runs out of ink, the Apocryphal Curse tries to kill you; just ordinary everyday stuff. Eventually you just get used to it and stop caring."
"Wow, that's really humbling. I'm having trouble just staying ahead of my Afflictions. How'd you do it?"
"Just kept taking WIS and Will advancements, really. Probably could have mitigated my Curses a bunch with all that effort, but hindsight and thirty thousand Wisdom is a shitty combination."
"...."
"Yeah, it's been a couple hundred thousand years since I've gotten any new Accursed Favor."
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.
If your goal here was to make me feel ever-more uneasy, you really nailed it. After I read this line I had to actively try to avoid grimacing and thinking, "Oh no, here we go" to myself and didn't succeed at suppressing either of those.
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.
One of those situation where you're really best off it you succeed in a very average way. Being strong makes you noticeable, which makes you important, and as we all know the only protections from the depredations of the world in any Rihaku-adjacent 'verse are absolute surpassing strength and refuge in anonymity, and Dayan now possesses neither.
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.
You've used a lot of evocative, sensory language so far, but it didn't manage to cheapen this bit at all. Introductions to The Accursed are always really fun to read and write because people so effectively pack great language into them. He's super young to receive an offer, though. Really incredibly young. I guess it was urgent to get it in before the girl could speak to him? I suppose that it was to be a momentous encounter, then.
Reading further, yes, that was exactly it. Damn, I wonder who she is? How bad of an ending is The Accursed preventing here?
Always interesting to note who The Accursed has to say that he's not affiliated with. Gives you a neat way to introduce some of the important theological/mythological/magio-political figures of the setting. How do you think The Accursed does his research for his opening speech? Does he look at the whole realm side-on to get a general picture of the timeline and metaphysics? Does he just scry based on eliminative quality searches until he finds the Cursebearer candidates, slap alerts on them to tell him if something is going to go wrong, and then root around in the world to get the info necessary for his pitch when he shows up?
Urgh, Combat-Type for 3 Curses and Progression-Type for Crowning + 1?
Let's just see what Crowning Curses are being offered....
Okay, now that I've thrown up a little bit in my mouth (good job! That's what a Crowning Curse should probably feel like.), I'm firmly in the Combat-Type camp. I don't think that anyone could possibly choose to take that, certainly not to the degree that would allow The Accursed to be as mitigated as he clearly is. And Apocryphal is frankly not worth taking unless you're like Hunger and have an extreme motivation to do so. You can do just fine with a well-chosen Primary Remittance, even without Progression. And the power will necessarily comes with a way to skip out, as per the description, so you don't have to worry about being trapped here even without the Geas of Indenture.
[Candidate] Combat-Type [Candidate] Affliction of Slumber [Candidate] Affliction of Banality [Candidate] Brand of the Unmemorable [Candidate] Homecoming
Chilling build. Unmemorable + Banality is really, really not fun, but Praxis training should help, and it's better to be unhappy than it is to be constantly in grave danger. I don't like Entropy, couldn't find a third Curse that I liked Geas + Wretched with. This build is safe, and pretty much only entails further Praxis grinding on top of whatever initial elevation into it you would get as a Combat-Type. I suppose the idea is to build Praxis and the native magic towards mitigation of Banality and Slumber over time, since they're really the primary restrictions to living a happy life. Unmemorable sucks, but there are workarounds and he'll likely get used to it anyways.
Apocryphal + Wretched with Praxis Progression might actually be superior in terms of quality of life, haha! But it's much much riskier, so I don't feel like it would be prudent.
But think of the Conjunctional Advancements! The possibility of an Oriflamme Token + The Hunger Ring advancement really beckons to me.
~5600 word post. I think that's approximately 10,000 today? A record for me for sure, since I don't think I've typed this much in one day since I graduated from school.
Cheers! Happy Spookmas Everybody, and a good Arete to you all!
[X] "I wish for the Seraph's favor." (2 wishes)
[X] "I wish my reprieve be deferred."
I still only really want Favor, but if Favor doesn't win then I'd much rather have Deferral than Exaltation, even if the best result in my mind would be Favor + Grace/Guidance. God, strategically voting....
If Favor loses, I'm going to push hard for Ruling Ring with our massive Arete stores, especially since we're about to run out of doublings. It's just too good to not get now that we've amassed a really solid lump of power relative to the general power level of this universe.
[Aab] Catharsis: A powerful demonic entity, a spark of your own essence, turned to the betterment of your victim, albeit in the most devilish manners available. Immune to you, highly resistant to your victim's Brand.
[Aab] EVE: A soul parasite, EVE will drain a portion of all metaphysical or magical progress your victim makes to feed its own growth, with the Accursed's approval. Immune to your victim's Brand and highly resistant to you.
It seems like reactions don't really get any airtime anyways, so I'm more posting for fun at this point than anything else. Can't suppose that I blame anybody for that, though, since I never really enjoyed reading reactions either. It takes a lot of effort to make them even moderately entertaining. It's sort of a zen feeling to write several thousand words that nobody has any interest in.
Well, yeah, who doesn't? Once we get an opportunity to get it, I'll probably going to vote for it, too.
Actually, wouldn't mind just buying it now tbh. We have the Arete, we can buy it for 25 arete 1 pick right now, I think? The plan was to get it during Pillar-time, but wasting less of it on getting ring and spending more of it on benefitting from ring might be a decent idea.
We also still need to get fisher king because if we don't there will end up being some problems with hunger sated running out. That is one problem I think none of us want to bring up again anytime soon.
With all the respect in the world to Mister The Birdsie (please don't hurt me) I think that voters should consider the following details:
1). We are reaching the end of the final Nameless Patreon reward, which means that our Arete will return to its former generation rate
2). Mister the Birdsie's recent eruption of fanwork, while adimrable, is neither reliable nor sustainable.
From (1) & (2) we can conclude that the days of buying EFBs every 18 in-game hours are coming to an end. We will need to make choices that do not rely on immediately outscaling their consequences. (This is particularly true if we emerge into the Human Sphere and start competing with literal Armaments).
If we take Favor, our current stock of 30 Arete (!) immediately becomes more valuable. It makes us more likely to succeed at our current challenges, and it improves every ability that we acquire in the future.
If we take Grace, then we have a single Get Out of Jail Card. Once it is gone, we go back to carefully budgeting our stock of Arete between short term survival and long term power. Grace is a single delaying action (in terms of the quest).
Favor is a better foundation for the relationship with Haeliel: it pairs with [Guidance] to demonstrate that we want her advice and will follow her example. It pivots away from the contentious votes about Hunger's personality. It even takes a stab at improving the Epilogue by increasing the average value of each Arete.
Also: Do you really want to give up Forebear's Blade + Oriflame Token Conjunctional Advancements!?
We also still need to get fisher king because if we don't there will end up being some problems with hunger sated running out. That is one problem I think none of us want to bring up again anytime soon.
Since RR enhances all advancement with picks, I'd rather get Fisher King after RR - it is a 5 pick advancement, after all, benefits should be pretty massive.
From there on, though, paths diverge depending on what we get here and what true new advancements RR actually unlocks beyond just making all things shinier and prettier.
Since RR enhances all advancement with picks, I'd rather get Fisher King after RR - it is a 5 pick advancement, after all, benefits should be pretty massive.
From there on, though, paths diverge depending on what we get here and what true new advancements RR actually unlocks beyond just making all things shinier and prettier.
Oh I definitely want to get RR as well. With over 30 Arete we can easily afford both. It's just people were talking about getting things like OaF lll or some
other EFB so I thought it would be good to remind everyone about FK.
We also still need to get fisher king because if we don't there will end up being some problems with hunger sated running out. That is one problem I think none of us want to bring up again anytime soon.
Blood Sorcery guaranteed 2 picks. It's not certain that we'll roll well enough to get anything from Distillation, but if we get Grace then getting 2 picks forces us to pick between OaF2 (2P, 25A) OR Fisher King (1 - 2P, 12A)
By contrast, Favor means we'd get OaF2 (0p,0A) AND Fisher King (1-2P, 12A) AND potentially something else...
Edit: Also. there haven't been any more Tactics posts since Conjured Blade put the entire thread on his back a couple weeks ago...
Blood Sorcery guaranteed 2 picks. It's not certain that we'll roll well enough to get anything from Distillation, but if we get Grace then getting 2 picks forces us to pick between OaF2 (2P, 25A) OR Fisher King (1 - 2P, 12A)
By contrast, Favor means we'd get OaF2 (0p,0A) AND Fisher King (1-2P, 12A) AND potentially something else...
I can't be the only one salivating over the possibility of immediate OaF 3. That is pretty much a guaranteed middle finger towards this next apocryphal proc. Imagine goading apocryphal into one massive proc and then growing so powerful you sweep it aside. We are building hungers legacy here, a man who looks in the face of certain doom and laughs, then cuts through. That's rising to handle the Accursed's mantle if I've ever heard of it. I know hunger has a recklessness problem but the idea sounds so god damn cool.
In my heart I know this to be true: The first step is the hardest.
The titanomachy comes to a close, but I've knives unsheathed and Arete unearned.
I shall not let that matter stand lightly. Thus I've gifts for the thread, unasked-for and likely unwanted. Yet they are gifts no less. I bid you have them.
They may not be vast, or mighty, but they are mine. Two thought experiments, hastily offered before the pyre burns out.
Edit: I had Ordinal Builds for the whole team (Except Versch) lined up for production, but I didn't think I could beat the doubled Arete deadline. Thus, an early release.
Let us presume for a moment that Haeliel graces a member of our party with her transcendental tutelage in the Ordinal Spiral. There is one obvious candidate, who has already received many great and terrible boons, that will take to this art with equally transcendent glee.
Our Renaissance Woman, Gisena.
Gifted with what many people would call 'real, actual, bend-physics-over-the-knee MAGIC' after a lifetime of only being able to tear down the supernal...I presume that she would explore the novelty of being a spontaneous caster with incomprehensible zeal.
Fortunate are we, that her mind is equally likely to be incomprehensibly vast in its scope and potency. That study of the Spiral further fortifies and quickens the mind will only speed her progress along.
This projection assumes that Gisena will seek as close to a generalist Ordinal build as possible, working expressly to avoid using the Ordinal Spiral in ways absolutely redundant with her current powers or panoply. This frees up a number of Ordinals, which allow her skills as a researcher to shine with a build that cares somewhat about using the Spiral to enhance her abilities while still giving her the joy of 'proper magecraft'.
It is also worth noting that artifacts can intersect with and improve Ordinals. One early find in Terrascape was a focusing lens that allowed a relatively unskilled practitioner the ability to safely use Gamma Radiation as an Elementalist focus so long as it was used in the casting of that Ordinal. The Azure may synergize well with the Spiral, as many of its effects are novel, unique and worth using as inspiration for new workings.
There is also a clever stunt to be pulled at the Sixth Ordinal, reminiscent of the moment of Gisena's ascension, which may produce much benefit if we are willing to engage in maximum greed.
Why am I even mentioning that as a possibility? Hunger is defined by reckless, near-suicidal greed in the pursuit of overwhelming power...by our own choosing! Of course we'll roll hot and ride the greed train into the station.
Now, for those of us with other things to do, behold a prospective eleven Ordinal list for Gisena and move on with your lives.
The build has many goals, by design. It leans on Gisena's obscene mental power to carry every Ordinal she can find like it's a magical Black Friday sale. The hope is to translate that mental power into great and terrible mystical force, while sneaking in some cheese halfway through this spontaneous spellcaster sandwich. Imperia wishes she could swag this hard.
I want Gisena's heart to soar, at least once, with the chance to feel the wonders of magic worked freely through her will. Thus, the expansive commentary in this particular build-essay. Others will be more restrained, but they may have some cute jokes hidden away for those who look. A cute point of reference, this is a build for two people!
For those of you missing Imperia with some time to kill, hold out until later and imagine two of them. You're welcome.
Let the thread have mercy on my soul, for I may craft a great and terrible queen of dainty foot, tyrannical intellect and irresistible will.
The First
There is an important foundation to be set here, and thus the decision is much harder than can be first assumed. In addition to the individual effect of the spells thus cast, each spell influences a wide range of other Ordinals producing significant utility effects. Thus, both are quite valuable even if a chosen Ordinal receives little use or has little immediate value. One would be useful for its influence on future Ordinals, while the other would be useful as an effect in its own right. I feel that there is one good choice and one sub-optimal but usable choice. Let the genius have her caprice, she's earned it.
Shield: It bars, it blocks, it parries, it denies. Gisena's defensive capacity is a long suffering weakness that we've had to plan around. Shield's ability to produce a relatively comprehensive defensive suite and make other spells more robust, convenient and defensively sound is the first step to producing a meaningful answer to such a sensitive problem. I prefer it, even if Gisena may find it boring.
Seeker: It was tempting, at first, to look at this Ordinal and throw it in the trash. Nullity blasts are faster, stronger and more likely to land telling blows on opponents of any class. The ability to intentionally guide future Ordinals with fine control and aggressive direction spare this spell the scythe. That said, I still do not prefer it as a means to shore up great weaknesses. Gisena, however, may find this passive enhancement marvelously empowering.
The Second
This Ordinal produces a number of entertaining utility effects, and is the first Ordinal that has meaningful synergies with The Azure Ring. One provides a space to hold Gisena's workings, the other provides a staggering array of tools with which to make them. Both of these effects scale highly with skill, and being an early Ordinal implies being an easy Ordinal to improve on. Either choice is good.
Conjure: Taking all of the mystical super projects Gisena should be getting up to on adventures would be significantly easier with a bag of holding, which we all know is Conjure in a trench-coat. High skill makes this a truly wonderful space to store the supernal armamentarium. Her superhuman intellect and learning capacity should make this as useful as a storage ring, being able to swiftly withdraw and deposit items of varying sizes. Physically steal the Tower of Earth, and absorb it in a safe environment or return it immediately in the case of traps. I prefer this, the Azure might concur, even if Gisena finds it boring. Put our lady in red, make her Carmen Sandiego impression impenetrable.
Construct: Making all of the mystical super projects Gisena should be getting up to on adventures would be significantly easier with Craftsman Needs No Tools and this is the closest we'll get. That this Ordinal allows us to channel Seram's Telekenetic Armementarium for a glorious encore allows Gisena to become a murder-blender in her own right. Turning skill into strength is the dream of the magi, this Ordinal will deliver on that promise for quite some time. I do not object to this, the Azure might love this, Gisena may find it fun.
The Third
This is the first Ordinal which has an effect that can be entirely supplanted by a power to which Gisena has personal access. Examine is a clairvoyant effect, which the Azure ring might produce at the cost of reducing its available maximum store of power. It is likely that the Azure ring will improve in its power over knowledge and its acquisition, as well as its capacity for power, should we win the Ring War. The thread however, does not want the sauce. I would be willing to get a Specialist Ordinal here, but neither the integrity of the build nor the ardor of Gisena will abide such laziness!!
Elements: One of our companions has fire, but the other four elements are fair game if we don't want to try flexing on our juniors. Technically speaking, this could also have been part of an answer to the currency problem if material thus summoned were permanently substantiated (looking at you Earth). The element thus chosen for this Ordinal makes this pick highly contextual, but vibrant and exciting nonetheless. Gisena might enjoy the novelty and spectacle of it, as elementalism is a common magical tradition. I am ambivalent. Gamma for the Greed.
Examine: Just because the ring can do it, doesn't mean that the ring should be doing it. Power not invested in divination is power that can be directed toward craft! There is also something to be said for the ability to quickly and easily acquire hidden data, or keep a scrying field active in our presence or in strategically relevant areas. Gisena might enjoy the utility of it and the Azure might appreciate us taking on some of its burdens. I remain ambivalent.
The Fourth
This Ordinal also has an easily supplanted power, thanks to the nature of Gisena's defining grace: Nullity. Outside of Dispel's precision, Gisena has more robust and potent supernal nullification abilities. I would firmly posit that she would pick Dominion if she were looking for a novel effect, or otherwise call this a Specialist Ordinal and move on.
Dominion: Kiss The Ring, or Gisena's supernaturally beautiful feet. I won't judge, and some of our enemies might not have a choice in the matter anyway! Imperia returns, forged of findross and lavender hair. Gisena's beauty was already mind-bending, this would only double-down on her being a cognitohazard. The Azure's mind dominion would make enemies more susceptible to this effect, as it could lower their resistance and make up for a lack of specialized Ordinal power. I would choose this.
Dispel: Surely, you sport. Justly, you jape. Truly, you trick. Frankly, you frolic. Happily, you hoodwink. The only benefit here would be Dispel's precision, and Gisena's had a better version of this power since she's ever had powers. This is the second hardest no in the list and the only Ordinal I would reject out of hand.
The Other Three Ordinals: Elements is basically picking up a new spell altogether, with a new range of defenses to match! Everything else is reinforcing old tricks, but all those tricks are fantastically useful and worth investing in.
The Fifth
This Ordinal is unique in that its entire range of empowerment could be subsumed by powers Gisena has access to, the gifts of the Azure Ring. Personal scale emergency clairvoyance and personal time acceleration are powers explicitly available to The Azure. If I were tempted to skip the third, I would actually almost demand skipping the Fifth, call this a free Specialist Ordinal, and instead invest more effort in mastering The Azure's remit to make up the difference. However, as with the Third, I say to the Fifth; Neither integrity, nor Gisena, will abide laziness!
Augury: Second verse, same as the first: Just because the ring can do it, doesn't mean that the ring should be doing it. Sustained spontaneous divination effects eat at The Azure's power budget. The same argument made for Examine could be made here, though its preventative nature places it slightly higher on the list of defensive prioritization.
Accelerate: Time acceleration is highly prized for a thinking build, given Gisena's powers of deduction. Having more subjective time might make the difference between the answer to a puzzle being solved, and Hunger suffering a terminal case of Soul Destruction. We've been faced with the threat before, armoring ourselves against it in the future is only wise. This Ordinal and the Azure, would also play well with other Ordinals down the line if we commit to slavering greed. The Azure may appreciate more of us doing its dirty work, Gisena may find utility in it through agency enhancement, I would pick it.
The Other Four Ordinals: It's not laziness if we have meaningful choices, right? Since the Azure can perform this entire Ordinal, we have no real need to learn it (not using this Ordinal does make multi-casting easier, as a thought). Choosing Elements is essentially choosing another spell and making our defenses more comprehensive, again. Every other chosen effect enhanced only makes them more relevant.
The Sixth
This is the only Ordinal in the list where I am absolutely willing to disregard a decision despite the utility not being absolutely overshadowed by another element of Gisena's effect envelope. Absolute greed, and powerful flavors of forbidden cheese depend on this Ordinal. One Imperia was bad, two is a pox upon creation, three or more is the dread coming of the apocalypse. You're welcome.
Lance: Get this misbegotten lie out of my sight. Get ye behind me and lie in the grave, now and forevermore. Pick this to avoid having more rings, or feet, to kiss. Your sacrifice of power will be deeply appreciated by all those who would wish to keep their minds their own, and rewarded with your gentle, quiet decline into irrelevance as Cursebearers leave you behind.
Legion: At least one extra copy of Gisena, with a majority of her cognitive and magical power effectively split between them. That previous sentence should have had your greed senses tingling from the beginning. Consider the circumstances of her ascension, imagine one of the pair watching the other practice the Spiral, and see if Chryseiopeia pops out. On the other hand, a deeper understanding of the underlying structure of the Ordinal Spiral may yield greater teaching ability for the Spiral, the ability to deliberately design Attainments or Graces that sufficiently imitate and empower attainments. On the other, other hand, at least one research and development partner to activate the artifice dairy farm through delegation with sufficiently capable scientific partners. On the other, other, other hand, seeing her own Graces in action could provide some solid reference material for graces of many types. With at least two Gisenas, we'll have at least four hands! The penalty of absurd greed is highly mitigated by Gisena having so much mind to split that we can tank the hubris. The train leaves the station here. Get On.
The Seventh
This is an interesting Ordinal, in that there are two effects of entirely discrete utility. One allows us to create a miniature world in accordance with our desired parameters. The other is a get out of jail free card. Either of these Ordinals is highly useful, though if we're going for maximum greed and novelty of effect...there's only one choice. Seriously though, please pick either Ordinal. Neither are bad choices, and their utility is too good to pass up. That said, at the speeds we're operating, Teleport isn't wise in a reactive fashion.
Terrascape: In times of peace, stack all of the time manipulating effects we've got into the largest contiguous area we can conjure with this spell. The dream of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber will soon be upon us, and the road to greed everlasting shall be made clear, readily paved in Azure, gold and lavender. In times of war, a cage kissed by baneful morning, hellish noon and dreamless night; a maze writ of cognitohazards, antagonistically shifting environs, asymmetric temporal fields given the multiple sources of such effects we have access to and the rolling darkness that unravels the supernal.
Teleport: Compared to the grandiose ambition of the above, this Ordinal seems humble and uninteresting. Remember however, that many humble and uninteresting things are the reason you're alive to read this. The ability to simply leave a fight that's not working, travel quickly and beyond notice, or send your enemies away, is an easy answer to ridiculous problems. Sometimes, you build Rube Goldberg machines. Other times, you just shoot them. Other times still, you walk away.
A Note on Attainments
It is at the 7th Ordinal that the first Attainment reveals itself to, or is developed by, the Ordinalist. Many such Attainments improve specific Ordinals at or beneath the Seventh on the Spiral. There are at least three examples that I am aware of to draw inspiration from.
Attainments that influence specific Ordinals: Baker & Imperia use these if I'm remembering properly. Baker and Imperia likely use an Attainment to influence the same spell in different directions.
Baker, by word of Rihaku, uses an Attainment to maximize his number of Legion bodies and reduce cognitive drain through offsetting the cost in other fields.
Imperia likely used an Attainment to lock her Legion Ordinal into one perfect copy, and uses that copy to cast the War form, creating the Nettlespine.
Ordinals that break rules: Supreme, which was produced by the Strategist.
This effect was produced by a class of creature with significant understanding of and innate affinity with the underlying structure of the Spiral, allowing his partner to use both forms of the First Ordinal. This unshackled the highest level of utility from all Ordinals obtained as the First Ordinal Form improves the functions of later Ordinals.
If Legion cheese is legal, diet-Supreme may be on the docket or some other meta-structural enhancement to the way that all Ordinals operate. If not, then we may have an Attainment that bridges the gap between Ordinals and Graces that leans on Gisena's magical nature.
The Azure might pull a Supreme for the Fifth Ordinal, given that it actually performs both functions of that Ordinal. It may otherwise enhance their use, and produce an enhancement for Accelerate. Remember that the Azure is a sentient non-human intelligence that has preferences, memories, supernatural powers and a nature distantly similar to the Strategist. That might have been a valuable component of Supreme's existence.
A less fun but useful outcome would be anything to do with Nullity showing up here, Gisena would want to define herself outside of that power after all. A Grace Helix to compliment the Ordinal Spiral, I like the idea of that more than Nullity rearing its head.
An Attainment of great subtle utility in the vein of Supreme's other more straightforward aspect might well apply Gisena's obscene mental power toward the acquisition and retention of Ordinal Skills, fundamentally mitigating, negating, or reversing their tendency to degrade over time and patching a huge hole in this build: How the heck will she practice all of these Ordinals!?
The Eighth
This Ordinal opens up a whole new range of things to do with the power of magic, enhancing Gisena's capacity for shaping the world or finding new and interesting ways to give power to her friends (or outwit and undermine the power of her enemies). If Gisena comes across a superior ability to alter reality, take a specialist Ordinal here and run into the sunset.
Oathsworn: A power for governing, team building and administration. A good tool to bind people into our service, and another good tool to empower allies or take advantage of over-arrogant opponents. In all, a clever tool for peace and cold conflicts.
Overwhelm: A power for stewardship, power projection, creativity and material advantage. This affords the ability to create objects and reshape the world. Materials of great value could easily be spoofed, and shenanigans abound for the clever and enterprising. Gisena might thoroughly enjoy the power to reshape the physical world, and remake it in her own design.
The Ninth
One form of this Ordinal shapes an ally out of the ether, the other lets us shape new rituals out of the Spiral's programming language. We've got the best magic hacker we've ever met, right here. I'd say it's time to expand some tools.
Nightmare: No creature is as dreadful as Hunger on the field of battle o'er the span of eons. To pretend to spawn an entity from the Spiral that is consistently relevant to his battles is a fool's errand, demanding transcendent skill to make up for Specialist Ordinals. The creature thus summoned would need some highly valuable outside-context-powers to compensate for its lagging behind party members. However, Conjoiner powers are cute and dangerous tricks. This could give us more toys in the grab bag.
Nexus: The Azure and Gisena may well love this Ordinal, for it permits the building of purely magical things with the Spiral as a tool. Gisena's powers have always tended toward destruction of the sublime, this is a power that can facilitate its making. Her skill in magical decoding was great enough to turn herself into a whole new class of Sorceress, what could she do with additional bespoke tools?
The Tenth
This Ordinal has two choices on paper, but only one choice in effect. Given the thread's slavering greed, I'd respect the obscene power of VALOR!!! Given the thread's likelihood of riding the tiger until it eats us...I'd respect the obscene tiger-shaped power of VALOR!!! However, for those of us in the Smart, Moral and Not Dying gangs...the reward for our patience and faith, Vindicate, has arrived.
Valour: If we really think we can snatch it out of Haeliel's radiant hands in an hour of great need, go ahead and try it. Everyone who knows this form of the Tenth is playing a game of Highlander, and Haeliel-sempai is likely the top of the heap. I stand firmly against it regardless of whatever obscene power it grants. It's a stack of escalating Apocryphal procs waiting to happen. I repeat: Apocryphal Mondo Bait. NO.
Vindicate: This feels like Incident Nullification, but faster. The ability to simply make things not happen is highly prized. With enough mystical oomph, this is likely a resurrection waiting to happen. If power of that capacity is on the cards, then this becomes a no-brainer to take. A safe choice that I'd thoroughly recommend taking and teaching to all of our friends, for their own safety.
The Eleventh
We know little of this Ordinal, in terms of mechanical effect. We have however, likely seen the effect of one of these Ordinals in its debut story. Note that War was likely the strategic warhead that underpinned Imperia's apex position in Terrascape Academy prior to Arthur's servitude, it's name was likely Nettlespine.
Wyrd: Defense was a worry, wasn't it? As long as we can keep the spell running, it largely guarantees that damage and deleterious effects are a crock of filthy lies. With access to prolific enough healing, or sufficiently potent Vindicate casts, we can survive a great deal more with minimal fuss. Just make sure nobody aims for the head.
War: If it worked for Imperia, why not us? A better Conjoiner-esque power, and a significant boost to combat ability seemed to be the effects on the table. Making Gisena more directly relevant when the knives come out.
Let's keep trying to treat the ladies in our party to some lovely presents. Adorie surrendered the wealth of her queendom, perhaps we should dream of a world where the value of such sacrifice was returned with interest?
Adorie is either able to use the Signs herself, or has access to a wide range of magics owing to her station as a head-of-state for a magical polity. If given time to sort out magical effects, she could easily find synergies in the spellcasting forms available in the Voyaging Realm.
Given that Adorie's existence and abilities are a form of curse mitigation, keeping her safe is highly prized. Consistent and reliable defensive capacities are thus raised to the top of the list. Given the preponderance of magical effects that will come into her orbit, we can afford to specialize slightly and let other effects fill in the gaps.
Especially since her responsibilities as a head-of-state are integral to her character, this likely means that she may pursue a more tightly focused build that affords increased utility as an executive. It's easy to think that, but there may be an alternate build that affords an interesting series of abilities and choices. I'll leave that for an enterprising reader.
Adorie benefits from significant cognitive enhancement, meaning she's likely to reach high skill levels in Ordinals and further reach them quickly. She might not be so quick on the uptake as Gisena, but few things are in the multiverse.
Take a look at the recompense below, for all that it matters.
This build dreams of power in times of peace, bending the power of the Spiral toward the needs of statecraft. If memory serves, the Queen of Myth has significant cognitive enhancements, second only to Gisena at present. Hunger is no slouch, but his power is physical in nature. We can make no mistakes, and still fail. Then we shall make a river of our strength, and flood the world with glory. Let the base kings of the realm take heed, a Queen has risen and shall raise you up beside her.
Now in this case, there's a whole other opportunity to put things together. What other baubles come to the fore here?
The First
In truth, let's look a bit further back at fundamental assumptions of the build. Shield favors and enables builds that can run closer to autopilot, producing machines that are more redundant and reliable. Seeker decides that the best defenses are active, empowering and enabling builds that exert more granular effects. Adorie, in my opinion, already has enough to think about.
The Second
The Utility Ordinal! In a sense, as a ruler whose presence empowers the state...leaving isn't as useful. Our lady likely doesn't need access to either utility points, as she can likely commission these effects in different ways or produce them herself. I'd trash them both and specialize early, honestly throwing in more power toward the first. That said, Construct feels as though it has more usefulness in extending and enhancing Adorie's agency. I prefer it. Her sister's own might was the result of a mystical apparatus used to supplant her weak mundane body, and we've already seen one successful Construct central build. Construct may be a lesson in the value of personal strength.
The Third
It is time! An actual useful tool is here, in the Examine form. The ability to know more about a number of things is a highly prized state of affairs for an administrator, at high speeds and great depth is very useful. What use is base flame for the Queen of Myth!? What power dost flame grant, or stolidity stone, before the undiminished might of the Foremost. Nay, there is power aplenty in her grasp. Knowledge is the way. The vote is for Examine.
The Fourth
The value of this Ordinal, while useful, is largely diminished by access to Gisena and secondarily to other more specialized forms of magic. I posit that Dominion isn't the type of tool that Adorie would seriously enjoy using, given her seeming distaste toward cruelty and heartlessness. Thus, revisiting previous forms seems wise. Enhancing Examine is tempting, further improving her information advantage. Enhancing Construct provides value in translating more of Adorie's brilliance into might, give the woman some muscle.
The Fifth
Another "Gisena's got this covered" Ordinal. Just because I can write it off doesn't mean I should. Augury is a lovely form, and is useful for securing information advantages when the mettle meets the meat. Just knowing when the wrong knife would hit the wrong place is invaluable, literally life saving. The vote goes to Augury!
The Sixth
For Adorie, a serious consideration of offensive power or utility comes into play here. Lance gives her some teeth, while Legion gives her some more personal flexibility. Nobody can fault you for taking a day off if you're actually still at work! That said, I suspect that the thread will leave her to her queendom as we venture forward. Giving her permanent access to another avenue of action, even with diminished capability, seems a good recompense. I wonder how her bloodline would interact with Legion, would it prevent capability loss in some way? A tight competition, but Legion wins.
The Seventh
For the woman with everything, the power to spin new worlds from gossamer portrays little utility to me. Perhaps a safe haven, when the world rains flame or devastation. Terrascape Academy was likely a Terrascape, after all. Such a vast and robust world, that contained its own ecosystem, might well have a use. Teleport on the other hand answers time critical tasks with the removal of a significant time related constraint, travel itself. A common issue, for people in charge of things. Teleport wins!
A Note on Attainments
I suspect that the Mirellyan bloodline may have a valuable impact on the types of Attainments Adorie may be able to make. If she gains an attainment that prevents her from suffering permanent diminishment as a result of spells she casts...then Legion and Vindicate become exponentially more useful as their downsides come with a degradation of the Ordinalist in some capacity.
Adorie's relation with the Signs may also be very useful. Attainments based on the Signs might sneak extra power into the Ordinals with closest association to them.
Lastly, the Crown. Adorie's badge of office may have more to say about the power of Ordinals in her hands. Perhaps, given its focus on the realms of intellect, Ordinals relating to information access and manipulation may have an Attainment that improves them?
The Eighth
This Ordinal is another tool of statesmanship, in this case allowing Adorie to enhance and reward her most loyal subjects with ever greater power. This also affords the manufacturing of compliance with more radical or willful actors without the distasteful tools of mind control. Overwhelm feels wasteful in the face of her polity's splendor. Oathsworn it is.
The Ninth
If Adorie can elevate Nightmare unto a mighty protector of her realm, then I would pick it. Nexus feels like an effort to emulate her sister's power just a bit more. I suppose then, that I am willing to risk it all on Adorie's cunning alone, but Adorie may not be so bold. I would imagine that Adorie's Nightmare might not be such a meek creature, it would at least be an inexhaustible protector that would be relevant to most threats in her weight class.
The Tenth
If I objected to Valour with Gisena, then you'd best believe I'd put up barricades on the thought of Adorie picking up the accursed blade. All it takes is one Hunger wannabe hoping that Valor can imitate the 4Bear's secret herbs and spices long enough to deliver the sauce. NO. Vindicate continues to deliver and will deliver dividends.
The Eleventh
Giving Adorie a fearsome mien to assume when mettle meets meat is tempting. That said, she must persist. Again, at the cliff, I turn. I just can't commit to greed in this build. She's too valuable, on her own or otherwise. Let's get Wyrd.
I can't be the only one salivating over the possibility of immediate OaF 3. That is pretty much a guaranteed middle finger towards this next apocryphal proc.
Even OaF II is already a middle finger to the immediate Apocryphal proc. In that liminal space between being fucked by Apocryphal procs, we should be pursuing mitigation or improving our Progression so that we could get even more mitigation, but with some delay.
But then again, we do not actually know what OaF III actually does. If it actually provides considerable mutigation or growth acceleration... Well, I am not married to the Fisher King, I just think it is really, reallygood and it is a really good time to get it.
Even OaF II is already a middle finger to the immediate Apocryphal proc. In that liminal space between being fucked by Apocryphal procs, we should be pursuing mitigation or improving our Progression so that we could get even more mitigation, but with some delay.
But then again, we do not actually know what OaF III actually does. If it actually provides considerable mutigation or growth acceleration... Well, I am not married to the Fisher King, I just think it is really, reallygood and it is a really good time to get it.
Needs Must
(Previously)
I'm on the clock, and I'm not even entirely sure I want to know what's been going on. But I need to, kind of as a matter of principle.
So, take stock of the room. Armored chamber with rapid-deployment seats four cars back from the front; the others are a car ahead of me. Take stock of the allies I remember.
Nonstop. Railway Tinker, meaning he's a long-term dissociator with a thing for transport networks and/or model trains. Really neat aesthetic. I've just realized that his suit has fine lines on it that resemble the ones outside the train - magnetic accelerator tracks, probably. Assume he's well-armed so long as he has ammo.
Reasonable assumptions: He works much better inside established structures. Excellent-or-awful candidate for a Cauldron recruit, but with their ties to the Nine they may have decided to prioritize Siberian and Shatterbird over an infrastructural Tinker who isn't a mass murderer.
Chirault. Hand tinker, so another long-term dissociator, but maybe more focused on 'building tools to manipulate/understand things'. Possibly the previous host to Cradle's shard? I never got very far in Ward. Kinda tactile, going by her examination. Not great at remembering personal space - that's probably not a power thing. Also, looks pretty much exactly like Olivia Octavius taking cues from Doctor Vile. That's a little ominous, even though it's a great aesthetic. Might be romantically involved with Nonstop?
Reasonable assumptions: Variable competence, but quite solid inside her comfort zone. A little less plan-focused than Nonstop, but otherwise quite similar. I don't think she'd be a Cauldron recruit, unless they present themselves a lot less opaquely than in canon. Possibly a nascent supervillain.
Trickshooter. Gun tinker? No, her guns are mundane, it's the ammo that's unusual. Going by how many different colors of load there were on her three gunbelts, probably a Trump subtype, like Bakuda. So, can prep, but her toolbox is fundamentally a hundred different hammers - or in this case, ways to shoot people. Gonna presume she's a lot more like Taylor than like Sy. (The rest of her costume is thick and smooth and entirely grey, which serves to emphasize her gunbelts and by extension her hips. Grey Zorro hat. Mantle and really neat ...chaps? Half-chaps, that's the name for the ones that go ankle-to-knee. Did she make it herself? And if not, who did? How did even a not-very-there me not notice?)
Have I seen anyone else? ...Yes. Several dozen Ultra Heavy Parahuman Response Team people back at the base, and another 20+ boarding the train, in cars behind me. They can man the guns and drive the cars when they're separated. And two parahumans who I only saw from a distance. Androgynous blond boyband-type (crew cut, wraparound sunglasses, leather jacket with spiked shoulders) and heavily-armored flying woman with three halos (gunmetal-grey, taller than they were thick, concentric but one was tilted forward).
That's all. The Brockton Bay Wards have more capes than this. What's going on?
Well, if there's a memory editor, the obvious step is to do a sweep. Total elapsed time since I started re-auging myself: Sixteen seconds. I meet Chirault coming through the door, and see Trickshooter with a gun drawn on me behind her. (It does look like it's probably an 'escalating nonlethals' load though, based on the revolver's chamber. Only sensible, given what she knows.)
"Hi."
-I could just tell the truth about memory holes, as is my default instinct. But I now think fast enough to consider that not alerting the hypothetical memory editor would really be in my best interests.-
"Needed to refresh my transformation. Sorry I forgot to warn you. I think I made a breakthrough, though!" I step back and flex my wings, lifting off the ground.
She hasn't spoken a word. (Is this what conceptual speed means? Temporal precedence? She speaks as I start wondering, though.)
"Oh. That's great! Can I run more scans?"
"Probably, but it may have to wait. I need to check something." I squeeze past her to the command car, Trickshooter having lowered the gun slightly, then all the way up and down the train. I leave by the hatch, fly back to the other end, then come back in (it only takes a moment for authorization to come through) and sweep the inside again. Nothing, inside or out. Rockerboy is a piezoelectric Brute, halo girl makes monodirectional 'gravity streams' through her halos. (I also get their names. Lambskin and Jetstream.)
I should have a very strong sense for lies right now, and the only ones I've noticed are UHPRT goons pretending they're not actually terrified. Not many of them, though. I'm fairly sure Ultra-Heavy is a veteran track.
On to questioning Nonstop. I just ask like I ought to be answered, and he snaps to attention. The time pressure is apparently a matter of maintenance cycles - there's so much foreign tech in the train, maximum combat readiness requires planning a month in advance. A month he won't have, if he cedes initiative to the Nine.
They were supposed to get a lot more reinforcements before Borlange broke, but it's been three days and almost no one's showed up - his contacts claim things are hectic, and won't give him a timeframe. Furthermore, the reactor they needed vanished for three weeks and only arrived this afternoon. He half-suspects someone's trying to assassinate him.
And that's the clue I'm looking for. Not the assassination thing, which is almost certainly correct. The fact that he barely remembers me. Further questioning reveals that of the half-dozen revelations I remember dropping in my introduction, the only thing anyone really seems to have processed was the data Chirault got on my Element. Those revelations are starting to sink in now - I can see them hitting. And not just the ones I've mentioned this time: Chirault starts barraging me with future-history questions.
I don't actually remember how I came back.
I don't know much about this world after Gold Morning, where Zion goes on a world-wrecking rampage and then gets killed by a coalition of parahumans under the control of someone really powerful - and hasn't triggered yet, but only got that powerful due to emergency brain surgery.
I think the only major tech difference in my 2020 is touchscreens getting common, ten years more computer-speed iteration, and of course no Tinker influence. Oh, and we finally had quantum chips, which we were using for televisions.
Well, I think I know what's going on now. And the good news is, there almost certainly isn't a hostile memory-editor. Also, I probably didn't get myself possessed!
The bad news is, my base form is probably half-real or less. Can't really support my mind, can't affect others properly. Not a full 1.0 on the Infinite Singularity Husk, if I'm thinking in that paradigm.
(Not that I totally want to. Its' terminology is a mess, invented by someone who thought Beyond Perfection Ascendancy didn't just sound cool, but actually made a reasonable basis for a measuring system.)
So. Maintaining this form just jumped even higher on the priority list. Do something to make 'falling from grace' the way it degrades? Find a way to replace the conceptual mass with a non-temporary version, as the virtual stuff leaves? Overwrite something extant, to at least get basic functionality?
[ ] Write in analysis/tactics. I'll go with the best I get.
Chirault having gotten enough to chew on for a bit, I turn to a review of our tactics. The train is fast and immensely durable, but isn't great at off-track corners, and its' arsenal is much better for artillery support - they'd built with the expectation of allies to do the scouting. I'm actually very well suited to that, provided I have a way to relay targeting data - which Nonstop has. I accept the earpiece/camera/GPS combo, stash a second in my pocket just in case, and am promptly interrupted by Trickshooter, having quietly drawn on me again.
Staring me straight in the eye, she asks: "What are your powers? I can't pin them down, and they're making my friends act weird."
Oops. "I... don't think that's my powers, actually? They're counteracting a side effect of the thing that got me here. The thing I don't remember. I think it made me difficult to remember, and I only noticed seven minutes ago, when I achieved this form. I promise I don't mean harm to any of you. I want to stop the Nine."
She isn't convinced yet. "And what are your actual powers?"
"I'm not entirely sure! I can transform things with this substance, it's called Devildoor, and the transformed things have superpowers. One of those superpowers is to teleport between Devildoor concentrations. I'm sure there's more to it, I can guide the superpowers and I can probably guide the connection, but the powers are temporary so far and time is kind of precious right now. I'm probably not going to be able to think properly when I detransform, either, so if you could let me go now I'd appreciate it. Also, I think I could probably take a hit from the Siberian right now, so I'm not sure that gun would be much use."
She thumbs the cylinder one space back, to the final bullet - the one marked with an hourglass. Then she lowers it. "Okay, you're right. Priorities." And, half-grudgingly, "Sorry."
I don't really know what to say to that, so I glance around and take my leave. It looks like Nonstop and Chirault didn't really know how to respond to that either, and I don't blame them. Then I'm on the ascent, winging my way into the sky.
Presumably unlike Jetstream, I'm actually faster than the train, even when it's on tracks. A question to Nonstop gets me on the right heading, and I fly quickly enough to arrive five minutes before the train will. A number of verdant mountains, rather pretty in the afternoon light, are barely appreciated on the way.
Then, behind the last mountain, what must be a mile-high sandstorm. Closed on top, presumably to discourage fliers. Not really shaped like a storm, either - it conforms to the valley too closely for that. I see a couple of entrances, near ground level. At least one of them appears to be Livingston's main street.
What the heck. They had hostages, right? I can play along.
When I touch down, the road ahead is slick with - yes, that's blood. The mostly-exploded corpses give it away, most of them posed cheerily. Furthermore, the blood shimmers organically and resolves into a giant screen, showing what can only be Jack Slash.
"Welcome, hero! The Livingston Fair has been announced, and fabulous prizes are here to be won!" The screen changes to show a whole town's worth of innocents, slowly being fed into torture machines by spiderbot-zombies. In the background, I spy a real-looking sign saying 'Slaughterhouse Creek'.
Then it shows various challenges - a forest obstacle-course, apparently for racing the Siberian. Monstrous cyborgs who were probably parahumans in life, posing on the roof of a hunting supply shop. Crawler, prowling a massive arena made from a car lot, with what must be Belabor off to the side cracking his whip-chains. Shatterbird, floating in a chapel, holding a book I can't quite make out. And what must be Miasma, in a cloud of purple mist so thick I'm not even sure he's inside. Then it switches back to Jack.
"Will you win, and become the hero of the hour? Or will you fail, and return in disgrace? Cheating is, as always, prohibited - unless you don't get caught." He winks, and the screen goes dark.
Well.
Presumably Mannequin and Hatchet Face, on account of their stealth foci, don't get early reveals. Neither does Jack.
Who do I target first?
[] Jack. Most important to kill by a significant margin, but also going to make them stop playing. []Siberian. I might be able to spin this one as an accident, and doubles as a significant asset denial. Without her, the others can be nuked. [] Bonesaw. Possibly even more important asset denial, and the most important to turn. I'd want tactics. []Shatterbird. Without her, Dragon has a fair shot at soloing these guys. Also, considerably eases artillery support. [ ] The Victims. An obvious trap. A really obvious trap. But I might be able to avoid it, sort of, if I head there and ask for a task worth freeing them over. And my defenses are possibly the strongest in the world right now... [ ] Write-in. Hatchet Face, Crawler, Mannequin, Miasma, Bonesaw's Miniboss Squad, and the possible recruits are all valid targets to look for. Probably save more civilians that way, and maybe getting used to fighting will be worth a bit of time?
A/N: I wanted to get this out before the month was unambiguously over, so the teaser sequence is not fully described. I may edit more in come Monday. Happy Halloween!
UPDATE: Done! The situation is significantly different now, although the wordcount is not much changed.
I'd agree that we should be rabidly chasing Mitigation between Apocryphal procs, but we should really finish getting Fisher King. Leaving that source of Mitigation unfinished might have The Accursed...less than happy with our delay, especially given that he'd paid for our service in advance.
Also, another knife...
Let's keep trying to treat the ladies in our party to some lovely presents. Aeira found a wonderful little string of employment with us, but the thread's been finding her performance subpar. I haven't seen an update featuring her taking center stage or being expressly relevant in a long time.
I'd honestly think that among our party members, she might have one of the slowest rates of growth on this path. With our holistic intellect boosts, we can easily solve for some of this problem. Mr. Chosen One is likely the slowest on the block, but we can humor some progress for him later.
I'm cheating, by using INT boosts to rapidly jump the ladder and taking advantage of the majority of that power being bound to simpler Ordinals in case the buffs are lost! I pray for the cheese, and hope that it's smoky in this case.
If we don't invest in our companions, they'll fall off the back of the Cursebearer train. We're seeing that here.
I daresay that it's time for some professional development. The Ordinal Spiral has many tools, and she's certainly got a better base than Baker. Let's humor the experiment.
First: Shield [Boring but safe. Being caught out mid-assassination? Not a good look.]
Second: Conjure [A rogue with a bag of holding can end campaigns. I have experience.]
Third: Examine [Spies and assassins need an information advantage to do their jobs]
Fourth: Dispel [Breaking the right thing can ruin campaigns. I still have experience.]
Fifth: Augury [Responding to things going pear shaped is an important job for a duelist's survival.]
Sixth: Shield [Safe independent action is precious. Can't always depend on Hunger's buffs.]
Seventh: Dispel [If they blink, they'll miss their fireballs.]
Eighth: Examine [Improve information advantages. Know your enemies.]
Ninth: Augury [Superior warning signals mean superior survival chances.]
Tenth: Vindicate [There's being unseen and being un-seen. Keep your foes on their toes]
Eleventh: War [Bring the Silence.]
Shield, Conjure, Examine, Dispel, Augury, Vindicate and War. One of these ain't like the others, I'll tell you what. It's okay though, These are largely the Survival Ordinals. The only un-augmented Ordinals are Conjure and War. The goal here is to provide a general defensive suite that can provide consistent information advantages while saving a deadly sucker-punch for folks who can catch her off guard. Good for a spy out of depth, an assassin in over her head, or a duelist facing down a monster with hidden trump cards.
What kinds of professional development will we find here? How well does Hunger provide for the development of his employees? Let's find out!
The First
In an ideal world, our hunting operative won't need much help. Bespoke weapons and gifted power can account for her lethality in a wide range of activities. Let's make sure she can survive the execution of her targets and walk away from more dangerous missions. The fact that Shield will make other Ordinals effectively easier to cast only improves its value in my eyes, as more powerful Ordinals require more mental effort and multi-casting takes work.
The Second
This Ordinal has lovely tools for a rogue. While Construct is a marvelous Ordinal that makes life easier for folks without weapons, or folks with a need for tools...Aeira is neither. Her ability to occlude herself informs much about the ways that the Spiral can assist her. Being able to pull of obscene heists is a precious gift, and having a tool belt of Artifacts and dangerous items available in an eyeblink is just too useful for those of us in sneakier trades.
The Third
Elements? Hah! In Aeira's line of work, too many problems come from not knowing the shape of a problem. Examine helps us know our enemies, our targets, and gives us another source of reliable and consistent information on dangerous events and actors. Power alone isn't enough, not for the class of enemies and problems we'll find out and about.
The Fourth
Mind control, while useful, can create paper trails. The ability to unravel magical works is highly prized for independent operatives. Gisena won't always be near at hand, so we'll need to have someone on hand to make it not work. A tight range of utility effects is my goal for this build, I'll trust that Aeira can make her own escapes. Having a chance to turn off dangerous traps, or deny the grip of powerful effects, is better than not having it.
The Fifth
Active information advantages are good to create and capitalize on advantages. Passive information advantages protect us from enemies trying to do the same. Given the nature of some of the tasks Aeira will be asked to perform, higher speed may get things done but lose us an operative. More re-rolls means we have more chances to make daring decisions and get away with it. Thus Augury wins my vote.
The Sixth
Why not go full Baker? Narratively speaking, I'd rather see more of her personality develop and express itself. Mechanically, I'd also rather improve her personal safety by minimizing distractions in the build. Each Ordinal maintained requires more effort and focus, potentially distracting her in key moments. Unlike other party members, her intellect and mental processing power aren't transcendent. Work within the design parameters of our tools, and lean on what works. Shield having a power advantage to aid in escapes is highly prized.
The Seventh
Frankly, this Ordinal is lovely. It always makes me stress about the usefulness of location. However, while making a Reality Marble is a wildly tempting adventure that deserves its own Omake, I can't rely on Terrascape to provide the defensive measures I'd need. On the other hand, Teleport is underwhelming given the movement speeds that Aeira may be able to reach once combined with her own stealth power. Improving our agent's anti-magic kit feels like a solid step up, helping her widen chases and dodge dangerous effects that would otherwise strand and trap her.
A Note on Attainments
Aeira's Surgecraft is a source of power, and likely to have some effect on her use of the Ordinal Spiral. Even if there is no literal intersection between the two thanks to Attainments.
That said, her powers of concealment might help disguise the crux of her new divinatory abilities from unaware opponents and otherwise help disguise the nature of her Ordinal applications. An Attainment built for the job might help tighten up the build or allow the Spiral and Surgecraft
The Eighth
I'm throwing out the world reshaping powers from here on. Unlike the builds of our other leading ladies, this build is a scalpel. Reshaping reality can be left to other schools of magic. Here, we focus on what we need to be relevant. Information, in greater quality and quantity, will always be relevant. Even with precognition defenses, Augury should be helpful in many ways. As for Examine, knowing your enemy helps you end your enemy.
The Ninth
While fighting fair is for suckers, and Nightmare is a lovely knife in the spinal column, Aeira is likely quite able to escape many problems. More foreknowledge of danger, means more evasion of negative consequenses. Augury gets the bump here, to help it stay relevant as dangers loom. I want her forewarned and forearmed at every opportunity, so that our other party members can have some lovely outside-context-warnings.
The Tenth
There are only three people in this party I'd give the sword to; One has a better weapon already (4Bear 4 Lyfe), the other isn't dumb enough to play Highlander with Haeliel and the last is ontologically similar to enough to Haeliel that she might let it slide if he doesn't come at her sideways. Vindicate is basically a re-roll on demand, allowing our operative who should be unseen to become un-seen if she is seen.
The Eleventh
Given how tight I've made this build, one would expect me to empower a lower ordinal and call it a day. I mean, the highest up to this point is the 10th and the second highest is the 4th! I haven't committed to MAXIMUM OVERGREED at any point by taking War at any point in this cycle to date. Gladly, I'm breaking that trend now. Give our rogue the power to bring the silence, at least once, so that when the mettle meets the meat she'll have the spine for the task. At this point, nobody in our party should be defenseless and lacking in force projection.
Just imagine a blushing Hunger asking for Haliel's Favor
