A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Gabbie
That One Writer
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I love democracy. It's a good thing Follow Through has been defeated so thoroughly.
I dunno, democracy got us into a 5 pick fight that will probably eat through all the rerolls and the defensive wish, so it seems rather hit-or-miss.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
I don't have it in me to write 500 words about how basic elements of Gisena's character sheet [existing] are what will decide the fight. But if Gisena gets a 'single readied action' then her strongest technique is probably something like channeling Nullity through her Ring of power.
We've seen Hunger do "quelling" on enemies with blood, using his blood domain. Gisena might be able to aim something like quelling at Procyon, which is the product of Artifice. The best part of this is that dampening artifice would leave Hunger relatively untouched, as compared with a vanilla Tide of Nullity which might ablate the Armor of Midnight.
If she can swing even a minor distraction against the Armament she'll be doing better than Adorie, Aeira, and Aobaru.
We've seen Hunger do "quelling" on enemies with blood, using his blood domain. Gisena might be able to aim something like quelling at Procyon, which is the product of Artifice. The best part of this is that dampening artifice would leave Hunger relatively untouched, as compared with a vanilla Tide of Nullity which might ablate the Armor of Midnight.
If she can swing even a minor distraction against the Armament she'll be doing better than Adorie, Aeira, and Aobaru.
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Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
runeblue360Today at 5:53 PM
its worth a shot
[5:54 PM]
though she probably doesn't have the rank to affect procyon
[5:54 PM]
but maybe letrzia could channel nilfel's collective rank into a cohesive whole through sharpbright and then channel it into the ring?
[5:55 PM]
maybe the ring could be used to make that cohesive whole more coherent?
[5:55 PM]
using artifice to craft a spear on pressure
its worth a shot
[5:54 PM]
though she probably doesn't have the rank to affect procyon
[5:54 PM]
but maybe letrzia could channel nilfel's collective rank into a cohesive whole through sharpbright and then channel it into the ring?
[5:55 PM]
maybe the ring could be used to make that cohesive whole more coherent?
[5:55 PM]
using artifice to craft a spear on pressure
Alternatively... maybe channeling Nullity into Truth? Trying to Nullify the truth that Procyon blares out as it exists and emanates its existence via the Plenary Brand. I'm not sure if this is something that works and makes sense, or doesn't work or make sense at all, though. Or if it's a 'possible, but annoys the Azure Ring to do this sort of thing greatly...'
Or perhaps trying to combo Truth and Blood? Using the Truth facet to try and boost Hunger's bloodcasting. (Man, Blood Sorcery would be neat to have. I really hope we pick it up at some point. Very handy.)
Maybe trying to bolster the Truth of the Mirellyian Bloodline power. Or the Walls of Myth. To bolster them against the truth of Procyon and its Plenary Brand.
Or perhaps trying to combo Truth and Blood? Using the Truth facet to try and boost Hunger's bloodcasting. (Man, Blood Sorcery would be neat to have. I really hope we pick it up at some point. Very handy.)
Maybe trying to bolster the Truth of the Mirellyian Bloodline power. Or the Walls of Myth. To bolster them against the truth of Procyon and its Plenary Brand.
I was tossing and turning last night when I had a stray thought. I was trying to equate what happened to Letizia's Totality being broken through by Augustine and how that would interact with this situation. Presumably Gisena via Augustines runes has the ability to bypass totality, or at least interact with it. Previously the spell worked as: Property of Nilfel abducted, take something of somewhat equal value. Our current situation has the Walls of Myth with a hairline fracture. Using the same principle, if Gisena can piece or has pieced together that spell, she may be able to induce a hairline fracture, or equivelent in our opponents Totality. (with more damage the longer we wait to pull the trigger?)
Perhaps Hungers alpha strike can target this fracture, instead of aiming for the Armament, Cut Through the Totality and reach the squishy pilot beneath with our Ring of Blood.
Perhaps Hungers alpha strike can target this fracture, instead of aiming for the Armament, Cut Through the Totality and reach the squishy pilot beneath with our Ring of Blood.
- Location
- a place
Well, if Gisena ( or literally anyone else at all in Nilfel) can actually pull of Augustine's mecha stealing trick, this might be easier then we think if can just use Hunger's superhuman wits and charisma to bait the Republic command to try taking something of Value from Nilfel and then taking Procyon, sans pilot, with it.
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- Location
- 1
Isn't it our understanding they plan to kidnap loads of Nilfel mages? I don't think they're going to require baiting to try to steal things from Nilfel, and if they do require baiting then that means running would've been the right move, not that we can check that now.
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- Location
- a place
To steal 'things', if by things you mean people capable of magic, in general? Not at all. But the spell specifically works off the 'twisted principle of equivalent exchange' and worked because we had taken the Tower that Adorie was kept in. For it to work on Procyon it's probably likely they'd need to take something of equal grandeur.
Maybe getting them to send in a strike team into the wall of myth, letting said strike team breach and occupy part of it, then use said 'theft' of a portion of one of Nilfel's greatest artifacts to snatch Procyon from them?
- Location
- 1
hm...
from a certain point of view, if Procyon breaks the Walls of Myth, that's a greater harm to Nilfel then Procyons loss would be to his side, because the Walls have a pressure that is beyond Astral Rank and Procyon is basically important because of his Astral Rank...
Wait,when it was found Armaments could talk, didn't rihaku say something like 'of course they can talk, they're rank 10, there's very little they can't do if they really want to'? If that's right... why can't the Walls of Myth fight back with their even-higher-then-10 Rank? do they just not care about getting destroyed?
from a certain point of view, if Procyon breaks the Walls of Myth, that's a greater harm to Nilfel then Procyons loss would be to his side, because the Walls have a pressure that is beyond Astral Rank and Procyon is basically important because of his Astral Rank...
Wait,when it was found Armaments could talk, didn't rihaku say something like 'of course they can talk, they're rank 10, there's very little they can't do if they really want to'? If that's right... why can't the Walls of Myth fight back with their even-higher-then-10 Rank? do they just not care about getting destroyed?
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I don't think the Walls of Myth have a higher Rank, so much as what Rank they have is more valuable. It's a lot like Hunger in that way. As for why, they could just be dormant with the Arcanist's slumber, or perhaps not sentient enough to consciously direct their power in the first place.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Hunger has Blood Rank 10.5+. I kind of think adding blood to blades - I keep coming back to spears, Lance of Longinus reference? - would maybe let him strike at the Armament with the full force of that.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Gabrielos having his Gaidens in this thread? It's more likely than you think!
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Wordcount: 4410
Titanhood
The re-entry procedure wasn't the least pleasant thing Gabriel experienced over the course of the last two weeks, but it was definitely somewhere near the top of the list.
That was saying something, given that he'd fought an elite paramilitary detachment, dealt with being stuck in an eldritch realm, and was planning to become powerful enough to stop an elder being from the Beyond that was seeking to gain access to his reality and, presumably, eat it whole like an afternoon snack.
Once he exited the range of whatever gravitational anomaly kept the station unaffected by Earth's own gravity, the entire craft he was in shuddered and oscillated for a minute while slowing down as if unable to decide which direction it wanted to go, before suddenly accelerating towards the surface as if yanked. Then, only a short anxious moment later, the thrusters engaged with a sudden boom. If Gabriel didn't have hours of back-breaking acrobatics training, it would have sufficed to void the contents of his stomach through both ways right there and then.
But after roughly half an hour moving towards the Earth, then angling and falling through the atmosphere, he reached target and started to see the mountain range approaching, and then the craft moved closer to the farm.
The parachute deploying was the last bit of unpleasantry for the entire experience. The sudden decrease in momentum felt like hitting a bump in the road, if the bump was an entire rock and you were in a race car moving at its top speed.
Nonetheless, it landed him safely back on Earth. For a given definition of 'safely.'
The escape pod crashed into the earth with enough force to shatter bone. A full-body airbag deployed a decisecond earlier, cushioning Gabriel and making him fall deeper into the chassis of the vehicle to compensate for the sudden drop from over three-hundred miles per hour into a total standstill.
It felt no more unpleasant than sitting down too quickly, although it made a lot of noise. It was mostly the fact that such a measure was necessary that made it unpleasant for him.
Gabriel had fortunately taken off his sledgehammer from his back, else it probably would have done even more unpleasant things to his spine. It was a good thing the craft was equipped with a rack for putting one's weapons it. It was clearly meant as some kind of assault, deep strike thing.
"He's back," said Crow from a vantage point; a tower of warded stone; dark gray with silver glyphs and inscriptions that seemed to become opalescent when angled against the fall of the setting sun.
The soldier nimbly leaped from his position then sprinted across thirty meters in an eyeblink. "Are you alright, sir? Do you need help getting out?"
The door of the pod opened with a hiss of steam. With a heavy grunt, Gabriel balanced over the seat and managed to tilt forward enough to snap off the safety belt which had gone into 'release' mode at some point.
He ripped himself out of the airbags and stepped out of the escape pod, clutching his head. "Okay, this is Earth? I'm not a ghost, right? You can see me?"
"Yes, sir, although that does not preclude the possibility of you being a ghost," Crow answered in a helpful, semi-chipper tone. "Specters can be really tricky."
Gabriel snorted and lightheartedly waved Crow off. "If I were a ghost, that joke would've been enough to exorcise me out of this realm."
Crow looked down and whispered to himself, "Joke?"
He snapped back up as Gabriel started again, "Is everything alright at the safehouse? The Apocryphal Curse… sort of happened, while I was going out. You've certainly been informed by Dr. Serpenti."
"Yes, sir. We have acquired your friends and girlfriend!" Crow said in confirmation. "We have also acquired, at their insistence, McDonald's. We have some fries leftover if you'd like."
Gabriel nodded and sighed in relief at the notion that his mates and partner were alright. Then, a wave of sadness washed over him. "Prolessarch's dead."
"Sir?" Crow's head bobbed to the side. "Is that not how it normally is?"
"I mean–" Gabriel held back a chuckle. "Yes, but his physical form was destroyed by some monsters in the Eldritch Plane. He'll be back by the end of the week, if everything goes to plan."
"Understood," confirmed Crow. He pointed at the warded stone that he was standing on when Gabriel crashed, only a couple dozen meters away from them. "We've set up warding points at several junctures around the farm, sir. It should be next to impossible to assault our location unless the points are destroyed using thaumaturgical means."
"Wonderful," Gabriel said, nodding in confirmation. "Let's head back."
They headed back to peruse a ritual of debauchery. Hope, Sante, Francesca, and oddly enough, Eagle were jamming their faces full of unhealthy food, including hamburgers, fries, and chicken nuggets. Hound appeared to be transfixed by this sight, watching it with something approaching horror, but stemming from a place of disgust.
"I almost died!" Gabriel said with spread arms, with a chipper tone. "But I didn't. Hey guys."
Hope and Francesca's heads instantly swiveled in Gabriel's direction; a look of worry on the former, and a gaze of relief mixed with horror on the latter's. Francesca stood up, leaving behind her food, and going to embrace Gabriel.
"Are you alright?" Francesca asked, pulling back and placing both her hands on Gabriel's shoulders.
Gabriel smiled, followed by a sigh. "Yeah, I'm here, aren't I? I'm not gonna kick it yet."
After chewing through a mouthful of fries with sour cream sauce on them, Eagle cheerily said, "Good job, sir! Near-death experiences often have a wonderful effect on one's appetite! Nuggets?" She held out a large twenty-piece box in his direction, while Hound visibly shuddered in revulsion. He looked at the box, slightly green at the gills and ill.
Sante finally raised his head, giving Gabriel a jaunty wave. "I knew you could do it when Hound told us what was going on."
Hope turned towards him. "You were the most worried about him getting impaled by a skyscraper-long arrow.
"Details, Hope, these are just details," Sante said, resuming to eat his food.
Gabriel could hear the commander's voice, at near-whisper volume, as he watched Sante chow down on a Big Mac. "H-how can people eat that? N-no, focus on the task: mental hardening. You have to resist throwing up… Focus, focus, focus..."
Gabriel turned towards Hope, Sante and Francesca, and then said, "I won't repeat the mistake of leaving you relatively unarmed. I'm going to add you to my Coterie."
Francesca raised an eyebrow. "Your what?"
"You didn't explain what was going on to her?" Gabriel asked, looking at Hope with both of his eyebrows up.
Hound suddenly placed a hand on his stomach, another near his throat, as if getting sick from the sight of mutilated human bodies. Eagle licked her lips tenderly and then bit down on a Cheeseburger, ripping out a huge, grease-coated piece of meat and but with a sauce-dipped pickle sticking out from between the layers. Suddenly, as if physically attacked by a melee fighter, Hound leaped for the hallway with the swiftness of a trained ninja, in the bathroom's direction.
"Just a quick overview, we didn't have much time," Hope replied, raising both hands defensively.
"The Coterie is just another one of my powers. I can give superpowers to those I wholly entrust with my entire being," Gabriel explained, looking at Francesca with a somber expression. "Those people being you, Hope, and Sante."
"Aaaw," Sante said, standing up himself - a whole ten centimeters taller than Francesca, on top of that - and approaching Gabriel. He reached down with both arms and hugged him, squashing Gabriel's face into his upper stomach. "So sweet."
Hope and Francesca snorted, while Gabriel performed a token struggle against Sante's hug - in reality, he could have broken his arms if he actually wanted to get out. When he finally let go, Gabriel cleared his throat.
"Well, let's do this," Gabriel said.
All three of them walked in front of Gabriel and stood there, waiting, while he closed his eyes, focusing on the Coterie.
That part of his Remittance had remained dreadfully quiet for most of his days as a Cursebearer, but now, it started lighting up with the stores of his accumulated orbs, as well as the links he could establish to the people he cared about. He reached out towards his friends and their acceptance was immediate, as if the Coterial Power had been expecting it, or wouldn't have extended towards anyone who did not do so without a second thought.
"Since you and Sante already have superpowers given by the skeleton, I'll be giving you one less orb than I'll give to Francesca, however, you can always exchange them in time of need," Gabriel said. They nodded and murmured in agreement, then settled on what powers they wanted, and what'd be most useful.
Accordingly, he sent three orbs to Hope, three to Sante, and four to Francesca, then shaped them into powers.
While the orbs floated within Hope's being, Gabriel caught a glimpse of her Imaginary Element. It was best described as Aniwater; a water-based, inherently non-lethal element that could temporarily boost nearly everything about a person. Strength, speed, reflexes, intelligence, and so on. Its effects didn't extend into the conceptual, unable to form magic resistance or arouse higher traits or abilities, but in its domain, it was near-superb. It would also, curiously enough, work on things such as robots or facsimiles.
The only flaw was that as a lesser Elementalist, she couldn't form copious amounts of it like Gabriel did. Perhaps once Prolessarch returned, he could ameliorate that with a new dose of his potions.
Gabriel instructed the three orbs assigned to her to form into a pure life magic effect - the ability to siphon away the stamina of people around herself in a moderate range, and use the collected energy in order to invigorate others. It wasn't quite as good at healing or causing permanent harm, but if the invigoration effect was consistently maintained, it could definitely accelerate the natural wound healing process.
Sante's Imaginary Element was called Scorchterra. It was an element of stable flame, dripping, and boiling off its excess mass, although uneager to do so. It was totally non-harmful to those that Sante wouldn't consider an enemy, and could even be used to encase them fully without any consequences. To everyone else, however, it behaved like magma boiling into flame, then decaying back into obsidian stone. The main issue was that, once again, having consumed an experimental sample, his power manifested in shapeshifting parts of his body to transform into his Element, rather than shooting it in vast quantities.
To add to that, Gabriel decided to manifest Sante's Coterial powers as a simple boost to his pre-existing abilities; he'd be able to either increase his body mass ex-nihilo or better control the mass already on his body. Low-tier biokinesis paired with shapeshifting. It would be synergistic with his powers as a Surgecrafter.
When it came to Francesca, she wasn't sure what she wanted. Gabriel decided that, for starters, he could give Francesca what she couldn't receive from Prolessarch; two orbs for an all-round, holistic boost to every aspect of her being, and the remaining two for an improved danger sense with the reflexes and speed to take advantage of it.
"Well, I'm done," Gabriel said, sighing and pretending to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
Francesca's eyes widened, her right hand instinctively moving for her chest. "I feel… so much better."
"Suuuperpowers, told you," Gabriel said, giving her a light bump on the stomach.
"Cut it out," Francesca giggled.
Sante was experimenting with the fact that he could make his hand as big as his head, and then grasp it with all five of his fingers as if it were an apple. He gave it an experimental yank, then chuckled at the results.
"Where's our skeletal friend?" Hope asked. From her sound, it seemed like she'd noticed his absence much earlier but held off on questioning the soldiers about it. Or, more likely, they didn't know until Gabriel had already returned. It wasn't like the POD was exactly aware of what Prolessarch did in his spare time.
"Dead," Gabriel replied calmly.
Hope raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that normal?"
"Dead dead, and will be back by Sunday," Gabriel said, sighing.
Hound returned from the bathroom a moment later. He was massaging the side of his neck with a pained moan. "Let's hope not," he said. Then he looked at Hope. "Actually, let's hope not. With him and her in the same location, we might undergo a meta-singularity of lively cheer and accelerate our temporal timeline straight to Christmas Eve."
He stepped out of the kitchen, heading towards the basement with a stretching motion as if preparing to go to sleep or otherwise tired. This would be Gabriel's last chance to talk to the man tonight; waking him up in the middle of sleep would be rude, and probably result in getting shot. A surprised soldier would rely more on reflex than anything.
"Guys, if you have questions, ask Eagle, I'll need to talk with Hound," Gabriel said, running off after him.
"What is it?" Hound asked, clearly hearing the statement from the hallway. He slowed down his progress in the basement's direction, then half-turned to address Gabriel directly. "If it's about the attack on Milan, I'm afraid I can't help you, sir. We've already heard most of it from Dr. Serpenti, though. We know that Progenitor Blue was involved and we changed our ward patterns to match some of the stuff he might come up with. Assuming that he'll come after us, anyhow."
"Don't worry about that." Gabriel grimaced at the memories. It was less than an hour ago, but it felt like fighting Lararfarrenox was yesterday, if not further than that. It was amazing how the mind could dissociate. Gabriel shook his head, then refocused.
It would not do to be distracted. Before the month was up, he would see lots more of similar things. Disasters that'd consume entire cities were about to become more common than people would believe or like. Milan was only the start, and quite possibly due to his Apocryphal Curse. It was its white-glove thrown in a challenge, and he would need to prepare in order to catch the next one before it came at him from a direction he could not see.
Gabriel settled on a course of action that he considered smart, or at least prudent. Looking up at Hound, he asked, "Do you remember when I asked your guys to train me? I'd like to change our schedule."
Now, as if suddenly overcoming his sickness, Hound turned around to address Gabriel with his full attention. "Have our instructions been unsatisfactory?"
He sounded disappointed, and if Gabriel didn't know him better: hurt. It was clear he took pride in his abilities as a soldier and commander, which included training new recruits.
It would have been a total lie to say 'yes', however. Gabriel was completely happy with the things that Hound showed him.
"Oh, no, I have been more than delighted to learn under you," Gabriel reassured, frantically moving both hands in assuage. Hound settled down minimally but was ready to interject in argument. "I'd like for you to train me personally, and for everyone else to train the other three. I have the advantage of Progression, they don't."
There was a moment of silence as the idea was considered. Hound didn't appear to see merit in it, looking down quietly and making negative hums and clicking noises with his mouth. Once he looked up, the man shook his head vehemently.
"I don't believe they'll be up to it, sir," Hound said, sound distinctly unhappy. "They're a bunch of teenagers."
"I'm a teenager too," Gabriel said with a raised eyebrow, folding his arms.
"You're not," answered Hound with a very stern insistence. It was so insistent that it even surprised Gabriel himself; his eyes widened a notch. "You're a killing machine. It takes you the same effort to snap a human neck as it does for a normal human to take a step forward, and the Ring on your finger has altered your personality to be more oriented towards active self-improvement. In addition, you have the constant motivation of being aware of how bad your situation is. You carry not one, but two curses that threaten your life constantly, and a third one that limits the valence of how far you can go to deal with those curses. It pushes you onward to act, to better yourself, to be more. You have full, personal, first-person comprehension of what it takes to survive and live another day."
Ending his speech there, Hound looked towards the kitchen. A peal of laughter came from there; Hope and Sante delighting at one of Eagle's stories.
There was no malice in his voice, no spite, no hatred, envy, or another negative thing that Gabriel would have come to associate with such a speech: there was only cold insistence. "They, on the other hand, are teenagers."
Gabriel frowned at that description, but couldn't help but agree with it.
It was an ugly truth to face. He'd changed so considerably over the course of the last several days that he wasn't sure if he was the same Gabriel anymore. When the Accursed's offer came, he was looking forward to a calm and easy life: marrying Francesca then settling down, having kids, and eventually dying surrounded by friends.
Those plans were dashed. If he survived, then he'd probably be immortal, and if he survived that, he'd probably eventually be a godlike being. Even a fraction's fraction of the Accursed's power was power enough to wash the entire reality he was in all-destroying flame, or put every mortal existence to the sword, or to resurrect a billion lives that had been lost in the countless wars that humanity enacted. There would be no settling down with the Apocryphal Curse, and no children if the Rival was around to kidnap them and turn them against him.
But he did have recourse in the last option. His friends were his power, so long as they were true friends. And what did Gabriel believe in; what ideal, if not friendship? He'd strived to protect and better his friends for his entire life, and sacrificed for them. It was a reasonable martyrdom, and it would translate into what uplifted him here.
If he protected them, they'd learn to protect each other, and protect him as well. They'd all become as one.
"I… I still want you to at least teach them some basics," he settled. "I want them to be able to fend for themselves when I'm not around."
Hound didn't argue that, seemingly finding it reasonable, even if exhausting. The man sighed and nodded. "If you insist, sir. I'll have a training schedule made for them."
"I'll go warn them," Gabriel said, heading back upstairs.
Hound nodded, then continued downstairs. Gabriel didn't know what he was going to do in the basement, but it seemed to be magic-related if the sigils marked on the stairs were any indication. This entire place was covered in enough wards to make Hogwarts look like a kindergarten.
"Guys!" Gabriel called out, just as Hope, Sante, and Francesca were having a detailed conversation with Eagle. Something about an old operation in Alaska, but Gabriel hadn't been listening to the start of the conversation and didn't know what the story was about.
"-So, I grabbed him and put the knife to his throat, and said, 'You want to live, I want answers, where's-"
"I'll have our friends train you so that you can manage without me always around," Gabriel said to all three of them. Eagle beamed at those news, grabbing her helmet and slipping it on and then standing up and mock-boxing the air.
"Okay," Sante and Hope replied simultaneously.
"What kind of training?" Francesca asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"Very intense, difficult, really rough, but worth it. They've been doing a magnificent job with me, and I trust they'll put in the same effort for you."
Francesca shrugged and smiled. "Well, I was going to be a policewoman anyway. Can't be much different."
"Let's go!" Eagle declared with a hop that brought her an entire meter into the air, high energy brimming in her voice. "Midnight is the best time for a run. Do you know how good it is for you? It really puts you to bed! Come on, you three, let's go run a couple of laps."
"Hound will get us a schedule by tomorrow morning," Gabriel said, approaching Eagle and placing two placatory hands in front of her face. "I love your enthusiasm, but let's wait for things to cool down, in case another two-hundred-meter giant decides to come crashing in."
Eagle deflated at once, into cool professionalism, and inclined her head respectfully. "Sir."
Gabriel patted her on the shoulder. "It's alright. I can come run now, I'm not that tired. Those three? They have eye-bags the size of Valentino purses."
Sante snorted awake when Hope nudged his side with her elbow. "H-huh?"
Francesca placed an arm on Gabriel's head, which made the boy smile. "I'm not tired, I can come as well."
"Hell, yes, I'll get the mine-field ready!" Eagle said, then dashed off and nimbly leaped up, turned her body horizontal to the ground. She managed to barely slip through an open crack in the window - a task that looked so utterly impossible that Gabriel wouldn't have imagined it could happen until she did it. She was like a cat, but somehow, more.
"Non-lethal mines, right?" Francesca asked, slowly going pale.
Gabriel chuckled and gave Francesca a quick peck on the cheek, to reassure her. "Well, we're in for one hell of a night."
---
There were lots of explosions that night, and it was hard to sleep. The mines were indeed, very lethal, but fortunately, Francesca's improved reflexes were helpful and she avoided getting hurt by an impressive margin. Even if she had, Eagle distributed a pair of standard-issue GRUP-type flak vests that she claimed would have protected them from ordinary shrapnel, and even if that somehow didn't work, she patted Gabriel on the arm like he was a new car and said, "This bad boy has a lot of healing juice in him."
They managed a superlative eight laps, mostly because Francesca refused to stop running unless Gabriel got tired first, so he started to slow down and move his chest up and down to convince her that he was, and then said he was done for the night.
Before sleeping, Gabriel spent two hours meditating - in the first, he replenished his used-up stores of Pentex spells and made some new ones with the concepts he'd gathered during the fight against the giant. In the second hour, he took some time for himself, to meditate wholly on the self, the ego.
The next morning, when he awoke from his slumber, the titan blood within him came to life.
Suddenly, as if a ghost were possessing him, the animated force of Lararfarrenox spurred into activity and demanded his direction. It pulsed in his heart, spread through his veins, and sought a focus.
Gabriel acquiesced.
With a squeeze of concentrated willpower, the blood of the Titan Lararfarrenox - the Sixteenth and Least Titan - creased every muscle in his form and densified the very essence of his physical being. It settled in like golden bricks, constructing a new layer to Gabriel's existence.
No material obstruction mattered to a Titan. It was a Truth that suddenly appeared in his mind, as he became more powerful: a Truth below the Universal Truths he'd witnessed the Blue Progenitor list, but it was a Truth nonetheless, and it was powerful. A Truth of Titanhood was a Truth, nonetheless.
Gabriel stared listlessly at a brief flash of something otherworldly congratulating him on his induction played out, then, just as quickly as he comprehended it, he felt the new power in his muscles and bones, in his veins and under his skin, like a shark ready to leap out of the water and bite at the foe. He made it so.
The power of his basic titanhood activated, and now Gabriel was faster and more obdurate than before by a large margin; over twice his base amount, and he could channel that in order to grow and become stronger instead. There was a ratio at which he was comprehensively improved in most attributes, but for now, he remained his normal size.
It was the first, massive step on his road to virtual godhood; a glimpse of the power the Accursed promised him. No one except a Cursebearer would have been able to process Lararfarrenox's blood so efficiently - now that Gabriel consumed it, he understood that a normal mortal, upon eating it, would have likely been constipated and sick for a couple of days then woke up from it only modestly stronger; from average human to peak-human, from peak-human to imperceptibly-beyond-peak-human. Lararfarrenox was so willing to part with it because he didn't fully understand the scope of the mortal he was dealing with.
Gabriel, however, transcended that limitation and became something else: a true Titan, if only a young and weak one. Eventually, he could expand his portfolio.
The moment the blood bubbled within him, Gabriel understood the Outer Realm held Sixteen Titans by tradition, and through becoming the Seventeenth, he broke a system that existed for countless eons. That system - the same one that congratulated him - was now also staring at him in shock, and he was staring back.
In breaking its dictates, he also broke a precious balance of power. He would need to either kill Lararfarrenox or convince his new titanic cousins that his existence was a worthy one. It was his only recourse, he understood, as the system's gaze left him to attend back to its neutral state.
Well, let's hope I can manage to convince them, because I have no chance against Larafarrenox.
The re-entry procedure wasn't the least pleasant thing Gabriel experienced over the course of the last two weeks, but it was definitely somewhere near the top of the list.
That was saying something, given that he'd fought an elite paramilitary detachment, dealt with being stuck in an eldritch realm, and was planning to become powerful enough to stop an elder being from the Beyond that was seeking to gain access to his reality and, presumably, eat it whole like an afternoon snack.
Once he exited the range of whatever gravitational anomaly kept the station unaffected by Earth's own gravity, the entire craft he was in shuddered and oscillated for a minute while slowing down as if unable to decide which direction it wanted to go, before suddenly accelerating towards the surface as if yanked. Then, only a short anxious moment later, the thrusters engaged with a sudden boom. If Gabriel didn't have hours of back-breaking acrobatics training, it would have sufficed to void the contents of his stomach through both ways right there and then.
But after roughly half an hour moving towards the Earth, then angling and falling through the atmosphere, he reached target and started to see the mountain range approaching, and then the craft moved closer to the farm.
The parachute deploying was the last bit of unpleasantry for the entire experience. The sudden decrease in momentum felt like hitting a bump in the road, if the bump was an entire rock and you were in a race car moving at its top speed.
Nonetheless, it landed him safely back on Earth. For a given definition of 'safely.'
The escape pod crashed into the earth with enough force to shatter bone. A full-body airbag deployed a decisecond earlier, cushioning Gabriel and making him fall deeper into the chassis of the vehicle to compensate for the sudden drop from over three-hundred miles per hour into a total standstill.
It felt no more unpleasant than sitting down too quickly, although it made a lot of noise. It was mostly the fact that such a measure was necessary that made it unpleasant for him.
Gabriel had fortunately taken off his sledgehammer from his back, else it probably would have done even more unpleasant things to his spine. It was a good thing the craft was equipped with a rack for putting one's weapons it. It was clearly meant as some kind of assault, deep strike thing.
"He's back," said Crow from a vantage point; a tower of warded stone; dark gray with silver glyphs and inscriptions that seemed to become opalescent when angled against the fall of the setting sun.
The soldier nimbly leaped from his position then sprinted across thirty meters in an eyeblink. "Are you alright, sir? Do you need help getting out?"
The door of the pod opened with a hiss of steam. With a heavy grunt, Gabriel balanced over the seat and managed to tilt forward enough to snap off the safety belt which had gone into 'release' mode at some point.
He ripped himself out of the airbags and stepped out of the escape pod, clutching his head. "Okay, this is Earth? I'm not a ghost, right? You can see me?"
"Yes, sir, although that does not preclude the possibility of you being a ghost," Crow answered in a helpful, semi-chipper tone. "Specters can be really tricky."
Gabriel snorted and lightheartedly waved Crow off. "If I were a ghost, that joke would've been enough to exorcise me out of this realm."
Crow looked down and whispered to himself, "Joke?"
He snapped back up as Gabriel started again, "Is everything alright at the safehouse? The Apocryphal Curse… sort of happened, while I was going out. You've certainly been informed by Dr. Serpenti."
"Yes, sir. We have acquired your friends and girlfriend!" Crow said in confirmation. "We have also acquired, at their insistence, McDonald's. We have some fries leftover if you'd like."
Gabriel nodded and sighed in relief at the notion that his mates and partner were alright. Then, a wave of sadness washed over him. "Prolessarch's dead."
"Sir?" Crow's head bobbed to the side. "Is that not how it normally is?"
"I mean–" Gabriel held back a chuckle. "Yes, but his physical form was destroyed by some monsters in the Eldritch Plane. He'll be back by the end of the week, if everything goes to plan."
"Understood," confirmed Crow. He pointed at the warded stone that he was standing on when Gabriel crashed, only a couple dozen meters away from them. "We've set up warding points at several junctures around the farm, sir. It should be next to impossible to assault our location unless the points are destroyed using thaumaturgical means."
"Wonderful," Gabriel said, nodding in confirmation. "Let's head back."
They headed back to peruse a ritual of debauchery. Hope, Sante, Francesca, and oddly enough, Eagle were jamming their faces full of unhealthy food, including hamburgers, fries, and chicken nuggets. Hound appeared to be transfixed by this sight, watching it with something approaching horror, but stemming from a place of disgust.
"I almost died!" Gabriel said with spread arms, with a chipper tone. "But I didn't. Hey guys."
Hope and Francesca's heads instantly swiveled in Gabriel's direction; a look of worry on the former, and a gaze of relief mixed with horror on the latter's. Francesca stood up, leaving behind her food, and going to embrace Gabriel.
"Are you alright?" Francesca asked, pulling back and placing both her hands on Gabriel's shoulders.
Gabriel smiled, followed by a sigh. "Yeah, I'm here, aren't I? I'm not gonna kick it yet."
After chewing through a mouthful of fries with sour cream sauce on them, Eagle cheerily said, "Good job, sir! Near-death experiences often have a wonderful effect on one's appetite! Nuggets?" She held out a large twenty-piece box in his direction, while Hound visibly shuddered in revulsion. He looked at the box, slightly green at the gills and ill.
Sante finally raised his head, giving Gabriel a jaunty wave. "I knew you could do it when Hound told us what was going on."
Hope turned towards him. "You were the most worried about him getting impaled by a skyscraper-long arrow.
"Details, Hope, these are just details," Sante said, resuming to eat his food.
Gabriel could hear the commander's voice, at near-whisper volume, as he watched Sante chow down on a Big Mac. "H-how can people eat that? N-no, focus on the task: mental hardening. You have to resist throwing up… Focus, focus, focus..."
Gabriel turned towards Hope, Sante and Francesca, and then said, "I won't repeat the mistake of leaving you relatively unarmed. I'm going to add you to my Coterie."
Francesca raised an eyebrow. "Your what?"
"You didn't explain what was going on to her?" Gabriel asked, looking at Hope with both of his eyebrows up.
Hound suddenly placed a hand on his stomach, another near his throat, as if getting sick from the sight of mutilated human bodies. Eagle licked her lips tenderly and then bit down on a Cheeseburger, ripping out a huge, grease-coated piece of meat and but with a sauce-dipped pickle sticking out from between the layers. Suddenly, as if physically attacked by a melee fighter, Hound leaped for the hallway with the swiftness of a trained ninja, in the bathroom's direction.
"Just a quick overview, we didn't have much time," Hope replied, raising both hands defensively.
"The Coterie is just another one of my powers. I can give superpowers to those I wholly entrust with my entire being," Gabriel explained, looking at Francesca with a somber expression. "Those people being you, Hope, and Sante."
"Aaaw," Sante said, standing up himself - a whole ten centimeters taller than Francesca, on top of that - and approaching Gabriel. He reached down with both arms and hugged him, squashing Gabriel's face into his upper stomach. "So sweet."
Hope and Francesca snorted, while Gabriel performed a token struggle against Sante's hug - in reality, he could have broken his arms if he actually wanted to get out. When he finally let go, Gabriel cleared his throat.
"Well, let's do this," Gabriel said.
All three of them walked in front of Gabriel and stood there, waiting, while he closed his eyes, focusing on the Coterie.
That part of his Remittance had remained dreadfully quiet for most of his days as a Cursebearer, but now, it started lighting up with the stores of his accumulated orbs, as well as the links he could establish to the people he cared about. He reached out towards his friends and their acceptance was immediate, as if the Coterial Power had been expecting it, or wouldn't have extended towards anyone who did not do so without a second thought.
"Since you and Sante already have superpowers given by the skeleton, I'll be giving you one less orb than I'll give to Francesca, however, you can always exchange them in time of need," Gabriel said. They nodded and murmured in agreement, then settled on what powers they wanted, and what'd be most useful.
Accordingly, he sent three orbs to Hope, three to Sante, and four to Francesca, then shaped them into powers.
While the orbs floated within Hope's being, Gabriel caught a glimpse of her Imaginary Element. It was best described as Aniwater; a water-based, inherently non-lethal element that could temporarily boost nearly everything about a person. Strength, speed, reflexes, intelligence, and so on. Its effects didn't extend into the conceptual, unable to form magic resistance or arouse higher traits or abilities, but in its domain, it was near-superb. It would also, curiously enough, work on things such as robots or facsimiles.
The only flaw was that as a lesser Elementalist, she couldn't form copious amounts of it like Gabriel did. Perhaps once Prolessarch returned, he could ameliorate that with a new dose of his potions.
Gabriel instructed the three orbs assigned to her to form into a pure life magic effect - the ability to siphon away the stamina of people around herself in a moderate range, and use the collected energy in order to invigorate others. It wasn't quite as good at healing or causing permanent harm, but if the invigoration effect was consistently maintained, it could definitely accelerate the natural wound healing process.
Sante's Imaginary Element was called Scorchterra. It was an element of stable flame, dripping, and boiling off its excess mass, although uneager to do so. It was totally non-harmful to those that Sante wouldn't consider an enemy, and could even be used to encase them fully without any consequences. To everyone else, however, it behaved like magma boiling into flame, then decaying back into obsidian stone. The main issue was that, once again, having consumed an experimental sample, his power manifested in shapeshifting parts of his body to transform into his Element, rather than shooting it in vast quantities.
To add to that, Gabriel decided to manifest Sante's Coterial powers as a simple boost to his pre-existing abilities; he'd be able to either increase his body mass ex-nihilo or better control the mass already on his body. Low-tier biokinesis paired with shapeshifting. It would be synergistic with his powers as a Surgecrafter.
When it came to Francesca, she wasn't sure what she wanted. Gabriel decided that, for starters, he could give Francesca what she couldn't receive from Prolessarch; two orbs for an all-round, holistic boost to every aspect of her being, and the remaining two for an improved danger sense with the reflexes and speed to take advantage of it.
"Well, I'm done," Gabriel said, sighing and pretending to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
Francesca's eyes widened, her right hand instinctively moving for her chest. "I feel… so much better."
"Suuuperpowers, told you," Gabriel said, giving her a light bump on the stomach.
"Cut it out," Francesca giggled.
Sante was experimenting with the fact that he could make his hand as big as his head, and then grasp it with all five of his fingers as if it were an apple. He gave it an experimental yank, then chuckled at the results.
"Where's our skeletal friend?" Hope asked. From her sound, it seemed like she'd noticed his absence much earlier but held off on questioning the soldiers about it. Or, more likely, they didn't know until Gabriel had already returned. It wasn't like the POD was exactly aware of what Prolessarch did in his spare time.
"Dead," Gabriel replied calmly.
Hope raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that normal?"
"Dead dead, and will be back by Sunday," Gabriel said, sighing.
Hound returned from the bathroom a moment later. He was massaging the side of his neck with a pained moan. "Let's hope not," he said. Then he looked at Hope. "Actually, let's hope not. With him and her in the same location, we might undergo a meta-singularity of lively cheer and accelerate our temporal timeline straight to Christmas Eve."
He stepped out of the kitchen, heading towards the basement with a stretching motion as if preparing to go to sleep or otherwise tired. This would be Gabriel's last chance to talk to the man tonight; waking him up in the middle of sleep would be rude, and probably result in getting shot. A surprised soldier would rely more on reflex than anything.
"Guys, if you have questions, ask Eagle, I'll need to talk with Hound," Gabriel said, running off after him.
"What is it?" Hound asked, clearly hearing the statement from the hallway. He slowed down his progress in the basement's direction, then half-turned to address Gabriel directly. "If it's about the attack on Milan, I'm afraid I can't help you, sir. We've already heard most of it from Dr. Serpenti, though. We know that Progenitor Blue was involved and we changed our ward patterns to match some of the stuff he might come up with. Assuming that he'll come after us, anyhow."
"Don't worry about that." Gabriel grimaced at the memories. It was less than an hour ago, but it felt like fighting Lararfarrenox was yesterday, if not further than that. It was amazing how the mind could dissociate. Gabriel shook his head, then refocused.
It would not do to be distracted. Before the month was up, he would see lots more of similar things. Disasters that'd consume entire cities were about to become more common than people would believe or like. Milan was only the start, and quite possibly due to his Apocryphal Curse. It was its white-glove thrown in a challenge, and he would need to prepare in order to catch the next one before it came at him from a direction he could not see.
Gabriel settled on a course of action that he considered smart, or at least prudent. Looking up at Hound, he asked, "Do you remember when I asked your guys to train me? I'd like to change our schedule."
Now, as if suddenly overcoming his sickness, Hound turned around to address Gabriel with his full attention. "Have our instructions been unsatisfactory?"
He sounded disappointed, and if Gabriel didn't know him better: hurt. It was clear he took pride in his abilities as a soldier and commander, which included training new recruits.
It would have been a total lie to say 'yes', however. Gabriel was completely happy with the things that Hound showed him.
"Oh, no, I have been more than delighted to learn under you," Gabriel reassured, frantically moving both hands in assuage. Hound settled down minimally but was ready to interject in argument. "I'd like for you to train me personally, and for everyone else to train the other three. I have the advantage of Progression, they don't."
There was a moment of silence as the idea was considered. Hound didn't appear to see merit in it, looking down quietly and making negative hums and clicking noises with his mouth. Once he looked up, the man shook his head vehemently.
"I don't believe they'll be up to it, sir," Hound said, sound distinctly unhappy. "They're a bunch of teenagers."
"I'm a teenager too," Gabriel said with a raised eyebrow, folding his arms.
"You're not," answered Hound with a very stern insistence. It was so insistent that it even surprised Gabriel himself; his eyes widened a notch. "You're a killing machine. It takes you the same effort to snap a human neck as it does for a normal human to take a step forward, and the Ring on your finger has altered your personality to be more oriented towards active self-improvement. In addition, you have the constant motivation of being aware of how bad your situation is. You carry not one, but two curses that threaten your life constantly, and a third one that limits the valence of how far you can go to deal with those curses. It pushes you onward to act, to better yourself, to be more. You have full, personal, first-person comprehension of what it takes to survive and live another day."
Ending his speech there, Hound looked towards the kitchen. A peal of laughter came from there; Hope and Sante delighting at one of Eagle's stories.
There was no malice in his voice, no spite, no hatred, envy, or another negative thing that Gabriel would have come to associate with such a speech: there was only cold insistence. "They, on the other hand, are teenagers."
Gabriel frowned at that description, but couldn't help but agree with it.
It was an ugly truth to face. He'd changed so considerably over the course of the last several days that he wasn't sure if he was the same Gabriel anymore. When the Accursed's offer came, he was looking forward to a calm and easy life: marrying Francesca then settling down, having kids, and eventually dying surrounded by friends.
Those plans were dashed. If he survived, then he'd probably be immortal, and if he survived that, he'd probably eventually be a godlike being. Even a fraction's fraction of the Accursed's power was power enough to wash the entire reality he was in all-destroying flame, or put every mortal existence to the sword, or to resurrect a billion lives that had been lost in the countless wars that humanity enacted. There would be no settling down with the Apocryphal Curse, and no children if the Rival was around to kidnap them and turn them against him.
But he did have recourse in the last option. His friends were his power, so long as they were true friends. And what did Gabriel believe in; what ideal, if not friendship? He'd strived to protect and better his friends for his entire life, and sacrificed for them. It was a reasonable martyrdom, and it would translate into what uplifted him here.
If he protected them, they'd learn to protect each other, and protect him as well. They'd all become as one.
"I… I still want you to at least teach them some basics," he settled. "I want them to be able to fend for themselves when I'm not around."
Hound didn't argue that, seemingly finding it reasonable, even if exhausting. The man sighed and nodded. "If you insist, sir. I'll have a training schedule made for them."
"I'll go warn them," Gabriel said, heading back upstairs.
Hound nodded, then continued downstairs. Gabriel didn't know what he was going to do in the basement, but it seemed to be magic-related if the sigils marked on the stairs were any indication. This entire place was covered in enough wards to make Hogwarts look like a kindergarten.
"Guys!" Gabriel called out, just as Hope, Sante, and Francesca were having a detailed conversation with Eagle. Something about an old operation in Alaska, but Gabriel hadn't been listening to the start of the conversation and didn't know what the story was about.
"-So, I grabbed him and put the knife to his throat, and said, 'You want to live, I want answers, where's-"
"I'll have our friends train you so that you can manage without me always around," Gabriel said to all three of them. Eagle beamed at those news, grabbing her helmet and slipping it on and then standing up and mock-boxing the air.
"Okay," Sante and Hope replied simultaneously.
"What kind of training?" Francesca asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"Very intense, difficult, really rough, but worth it. They've been doing a magnificent job with me, and I trust they'll put in the same effort for you."
Francesca shrugged and smiled. "Well, I was going to be a policewoman anyway. Can't be much different."
"Let's go!" Eagle declared with a hop that brought her an entire meter into the air, high energy brimming in her voice. "Midnight is the best time for a run. Do you know how good it is for you? It really puts you to bed! Come on, you three, let's go run a couple of laps."
"Hound will get us a schedule by tomorrow morning," Gabriel said, approaching Eagle and placing two placatory hands in front of her face. "I love your enthusiasm, but let's wait for things to cool down, in case another two-hundred-meter giant decides to come crashing in."
Eagle deflated at once, into cool professionalism, and inclined her head respectfully. "Sir."
Gabriel patted her on the shoulder. "It's alright. I can come run now, I'm not that tired. Those three? They have eye-bags the size of Valentino purses."
Sante snorted awake when Hope nudged his side with her elbow. "H-huh?"
Francesca placed an arm on Gabriel's head, which made the boy smile. "I'm not tired, I can come as well."
"Hell, yes, I'll get the mine-field ready!" Eagle said, then dashed off and nimbly leaped up, turned her body horizontal to the ground. She managed to barely slip through an open crack in the window - a task that looked so utterly impossible that Gabriel wouldn't have imagined it could happen until she did it. She was like a cat, but somehow, more.
"Non-lethal mines, right?" Francesca asked, slowly going pale.
Gabriel chuckled and gave Francesca a quick peck on the cheek, to reassure her. "Well, we're in for one hell of a night."
---
There were lots of explosions that night, and it was hard to sleep. The mines were indeed, very lethal, but fortunately, Francesca's improved reflexes were helpful and she avoided getting hurt by an impressive margin. Even if she had, Eagle distributed a pair of standard-issue GRUP-type flak vests that she claimed would have protected them from ordinary shrapnel, and even if that somehow didn't work, she patted Gabriel on the arm like he was a new car and said, "This bad boy has a lot of healing juice in him."
They managed a superlative eight laps, mostly because Francesca refused to stop running unless Gabriel got tired first, so he started to slow down and move his chest up and down to convince her that he was, and then said he was done for the night.
Before sleeping, Gabriel spent two hours meditating - in the first, he replenished his used-up stores of Pentex spells and made some new ones with the concepts he'd gathered during the fight against the giant. In the second hour, he took some time for himself, to meditate wholly on the self, the ego.
The next morning, when he awoke from his slumber, the titan blood within him came to life.
Suddenly, as if a ghost were possessing him, the animated force of Lararfarrenox spurred into activity and demanded his direction. It pulsed in his heart, spread through his veins, and sought a focus.
Gabriel acquiesced.
With a squeeze of concentrated willpower, the blood of the Titan Lararfarrenox - the Sixteenth and Least Titan - creased every muscle in his form and densified the very essence of his physical being. It settled in like golden bricks, constructing a new layer to Gabriel's existence.
No material obstruction mattered to a Titan. It was a Truth that suddenly appeared in his mind, as he became more powerful: a Truth below the Universal Truths he'd witnessed the Blue Progenitor list, but it was a Truth nonetheless, and it was powerful. A Truth of Titanhood was a Truth, nonetheless.
Gabriel stared listlessly at a brief flash of something otherworldly congratulating him on his induction played out, then, just as quickly as he comprehended it, he felt the new power in his muscles and bones, in his veins and under his skin, like a shark ready to leap out of the water and bite at the foe. He made it so.
The power of his basic titanhood activated, and now Gabriel was faster and more obdurate than before by a large margin; over twice his base amount, and he could channel that in order to grow and become stronger instead. There was a ratio at which he was comprehensively improved in most attributes, but for now, he remained his normal size.
It was the first, massive step on his road to virtual godhood; a glimpse of the power the Accursed promised him. No one except a Cursebearer would have been able to process Lararfarrenox's blood so efficiently - now that Gabriel consumed it, he understood that a normal mortal, upon eating it, would have likely been constipated and sick for a couple of days then woke up from it only modestly stronger; from average human to peak-human, from peak-human to imperceptibly-beyond-peak-human. Lararfarrenox was so willing to part with it because he didn't fully understand the scope of the mortal he was dealing with.
Gabriel, however, transcended that limitation and became something else: a true Titan, if only a young and weak one. Eventually, he could expand his portfolio.
The moment the blood bubbled within him, Gabriel understood the Outer Realm held Sixteen Titans by tradition, and through becoming the Seventeenth, he broke a system that existed for countless eons. That system - the same one that congratulated him - was now also staring at him in shock, and he was staring back.
In breaking its dictates, he also broke a precious balance of power. He would need to either kill Lararfarrenox or convince his new titanic cousins that his existence was a worthy one. It was his only recourse, he understood, as the system's gaze left him to attend back to its neutral state.
Well, let's hope I can manage to convince them, because I have no chance against Larafarrenox.
Do omakes without tactics still affect the % not to blow the defensive wish, as long as they are about this particular conflict?
Rihaku
The Internet
- Location
- 1
The Adventures of not-in-character Hunger fighting a superposition of every plausible interpretation of Procyon continue! Featuring random self-indulgent details from my own personal lore thing of myself, especially parts which have already been retconned, as a method of having a finale, because even when I'm writing very-explicitly-not-accurate-to-Hunger, it's still easier for me to write 'this is supposed to be a self-insert of me' then 'this is me with a nametag which says not me', for some reason.
Several minutes, which is to say days, after not-Hunger popped out of pseudo-existence, he found himself back in pseudo-existence! He was back at the start of the fight, mid-flight, jumping off the walls in an unspecified direction and posture but a high albeit unspecified speed! The following fight proceeded not terribly unlike how it had the first time, with him dead, alive, triumphant, defeated, and of course completely successful as he exsanguinated, but not, because he had the ring of blood. There were a few new branches of possibility in the mix, of course, new tactics that weren't present before, like teleporting already inside the Armament, and threatening the Armaments allies, and smooth-talking his way through a conversation for about five seconds before Tyrants Doom triggers in order to make his sword roughly 10% more efficient, only to discover that a 10% sharper sword doesn't make up for not getting the teleport-Thorn off.
And then there were the weird ones. Like, in one of them, Hunger manages to break through Totality with the help of Gisena imitating the lord protector because the Walls of Myth got damaged and they're symbolically like Nilfels totality, which more or less makes sense. But then that possibility becomes two possibilities, one where Hunger wins instantly... and one where it turns out Aeira has already assassinated the normal pilot of Procyon and was just trying to get back in to Nilfel for congratulations because they closed the door. Not to mention the outcomes where the Walls randomly explode because Aobaru 'thought it was a good idea', the ones where Adoreis bloodline suddenly activates itself and it turns out it's the power to turn any battle into a non-lethal dance party, the ones where Hunger uses nightmare flight to transport Procyon into the sun(accomplishing nothing but stalling, since both he and Procyon can survive that.), the ones where Gisena nullifies the sky to make it every time of the month at once, proccing Pillars...
At some point, pseudo-Hunger notices a problem.
There are a lot more ways for him to win then lose... but he's still losing a lot more then he's winning. he has the initiative, so he has more variety in responses... but for nearly ever response, there's a few outcomes where he loses. Five Picks is no joke, after all; even in noncanonicia, he's not got more then a good chance. And pseudo-Hunger pseudo-knows that only one of these outcomes is going to Actually happen, functionally at random, and he doesn't want the ones where he loses and dies, or even the ones where he loses and gets a deus ex mAccursed.. So, he beseeches the world, like, on the meta level where he's thinking about all the scenarios instead of being in them, and he offers to sacrifice anything, Anything for a better chance to win.
he then clarifies he means "anything which doesn't actually matter", because he already has the option to burn Selfhood to do it and he decided not to, and he's not going to sacrifice Nilfel or Gisena or any of his stats or Arete or Picks and he doesn't want to sacrifice his rerolls or his Defensive True Wish. So yeah, he beseeches reality. I'll sacrifice anything which isn't important for a better chance to win. like my ability to know what the mitochondria is without being in a position to make any use of it, or to conceptualise the number 397,382,109,286,193,107,177.3902999917 in particular. can I trade those?
And the world's like "yeah man, sure thing. Here, have... oh... probably around 0.01% more win chance for those sacrifices."
And he's like ok what can I trade for more then that, because that was pitiful, absolutely pathetic.
"to be fair", says unreality, "your sacrifices are pathetic. you picked a single-sentence description of something that doesn't matter, and then you specified the sacrifice is only until it Does matter."
whatever, says the person who is increasingly less identifiable with Hunger. what can I trade for more then that.
unreality replies "trade your Everything"
...What? replies not-Hunger. I already refused Selfhood. trading everything sounds like trading Selfhood to me, except moreso.
Unreality silently points at the word after "replies" in the above line.
Hunger probably wouldn't have understood the implications this has on the trade instantly. But this isn't Hunger. This is a being which started as a caricature of hunger, then rapidly diverged into basically a mini-me with a tiny note saying "goals: saving Hungers arse". So of course they understand unreality instantly, and agree to sacrifice their entire Not-Hunger existence to increase the odds of Hunger winning. in a sense, this is the second time they have done so, since omakes do that a little and this is the second omake and they pop out of existence at the end of each of these. The first time it was because I needed an ending, and this time it's a trade to reality but I'm also aware it looks kinda like a pattern.
As a result of the trade, Unreality decides to add something extra into the bargain. First, they burn an infinite amount of the superpositional states of Procyon and Not-Hunger for power, as the Ur-mother did (but less evil because in Unreality, none of those states contained any people, only caricatures, and the least caricaturial not-Hunger, who was at least sort-of person-y- the meta-one- sacrificed 'mself willingly.), and then funnel the broken unrealities' energy into the Prime Real Official Accursed-Influenced Not-in-Unreality Rihaku-written Voyaging Realm, where it manifests only in slightest extent, perhaps in the poor case even less effective then a single mote of dust in an eye at the wrong moment, in the way that omakes affect the chances of things happening even without tactics.
This infinite amount of states removed leaves behind a single instance of Procyon, and no Hungers. Now, this won't do! Unreality needs a dramatic, yet ultimately meaningless, finale! That's the extra thing; Unrealitys side of the bargain is already fulfilled. So, Unreality, motivation already fading, goes the low-effort route and conjures within itself a really low-quality author insert.
the sky darkens, then darkens further, then switches right around to being bright again. the text that is this writing itself shifts in its color, turning from white to the pure cyan that I always use for my self-inserts except R!JOE and DLE!JOE and- ok, I guess it's not that universal. turning to the pure cyan I use for Most of my self-inserts. Then the Font becomes Times New Roman, because that's Also the font I use for my self-inserts. Procyon looks on in confusion, consternation, and even some emotions that don't start with C when a bunch of white mist gathers into a place that mysteriously becomes opaque even though rank-augmented Armament senses should really be able to pierce mist. when it clears, the self-insert is clearly visible. Despite being clearly visible, of course, it is impossible to discern its hair color, height, nationality, age, race, political ideology, number of scars, or practically anything besides gender and some ripoff glowing cyan eyes which are actually some LEDs the insert taped to its face so it'll look dramatic. Unfortunately, Procyon is able to immediately punch them into meat-paste, because the Self-insert originates from a setting that is, ah... noticeably lower-scale then even this comparatively low-scale setting Rihakuverse universe. They've only got maybe one infinite cardinality of power, and it's kind of a stretch to call that guy the same guy! really, they're not cut out for dealing with Rank 10; physics is a lot more then a suggestion to this self-insert! Y'see, it's not that the self-insert is Weak. They can dominate the setting they come from, just like any chosen hero or whatever could. but most settings don't go up into infinite or transfinite power levels and for good reason; it's harder for a lot of people to conceptualize and it leads to-
Wait a second they respawned and pulled out one of the energy crystals.
"Hey, me, no, that's the wro*ng name. remember how they never ru*n out and you ca*lled them the infinite *ene*rg*y cryst*als?"
all those *'s are them getting punched into a paste by Procyon and respawning. they shall be omitted for convenience from here. Anyway.
Hey, that's not canon any more. it was retconned to just be a really really large amount of energy which was functionally infinite over human timescales if you stuck to the approved draw-rate.
"yeah, well, this isn't canon either and that was always a dumb retcon anyway. why would you make an incomprehensibly huge energy supply and limit the draw rate."
come on, why don't you-I-just use uh. one of the other things?
"Because all the ones that'd work are at least as stupid as this one, and this one being retconned lets me have this conversation about it anyway."
uh... breaking logic with a sword you super-charged with cyan and redness isn't as stupid as infinite energy from crystals that don't have that.
"Yeah, it's stupider. Why didn't we-i just say the sword made the crystals?"
...It didn't exist yet. get your timelines straight.
"sounds like time for another reeeetttttcooooooon!"
anyway. Since I neither can nor actually want to talk myself out of using the infinite energy crystals, insert-me dodges one of Procyons punches (this is accomplished primarily via shock value, since he's been effectively standing there motionless letting himself repeatedly get pounded to death for what, considering all the interruptions from the punches, has to have been at least five minutes now.), then uses some of his time magic (time magic is lower tier then infinite energy. Obviously.) to freeze time for everything-but-him. This gives him the few seconds needed to pull out another energy crystal (the first one broke. don't ask how releasing infinite energy didn't destroy the universe, and I won't ask why the blood rank doesn't apply to protecting someone hunger owes a blood debt to, that is to say, himself.), conjure a few disks of warped space, and break it in a way that does release the infinite energy. as time unfreezes, Procyon hardly has a second to scream before the energy- focused and redirected to target only them by the spacewarping- vaporizes them. Of course, the only reason procyon isn't able to use rank to avoid this is the inclusion of a second infinite energy crystal whos energy is processed into astral magic which is processed into making-reality-do-what-I-say-ium, which is why procyon tries to scream like a little girl instead of doing anything effective.
This ... "dramatic", yet ultimately meaningless, finale over with, Unreality allows itself to recede into a formless pseudo-anarchy which contains everything which isn't real, until next called on as an explanation for why my omakes very often quickly stop pretending to accurately represent the Voyaging Realm or any of the characters therein.
And then there were the weird ones. Like, in one of them, Hunger manages to break through Totality with the help of Gisena imitating the lord protector because the Walls of Myth got damaged and they're symbolically like Nilfels totality, which more or less makes sense. But then that possibility becomes two possibilities, one where Hunger wins instantly... and one where it turns out Aeira has already assassinated the normal pilot of Procyon and was just trying to get back in to Nilfel for congratulations because they closed the door. Not to mention the outcomes where the Walls randomly explode because Aobaru 'thought it was a good idea', the ones where Adoreis bloodline suddenly activates itself and it turns out it's the power to turn any battle into a non-lethal dance party, the ones where Hunger uses nightmare flight to transport Procyon into the sun(accomplishing nothing but stalling, since both he and Procyon can survive that.), the ones where Gisena nullifies the sky to make it every time of the month at once, proccing Pillars...
At some point, pseudo-Hunger notices a problem.
There are a lot more ways for him to win then lose... but he's still losing a lot more then he's winning. he has the initiative, so he has more variety in responses... but for nearly ever response, there's a few outcomes where he loses. Five Picks is no joke, after all; even in noncanonicia, he's not got more then a good chance. And pseudo-Hunger pseudo-knows that only one of these outcomes is going to Actually happen, functionally at random, and he doesn't want the ones where he loses and dies, or even the ones where he loses and gets a deus ex mAccursed.. So, he beseeches the world, like, on the meta level where he's thinking about all the scenarios instead of being in them, and he offers to sacrifice anything, Anything for a better chance to win.
he then clarifies he means "anything which doesn't actually matter", because he already has the option to burn Selfhood to do it and he decided not to, and he's not going to sacrifice Nilfel or Gisena or any of his stats or Arete or Picks and he doesn't want to sacrifice his rerolls or his Defensive True Wish. So yeah, he beseeches reality. I'll sacrifice anything which isn't important for a better chance to win. like my ability to know what the mitochondria is without being in a position to make any use of it, or to conceptualise the number 397,382,109,286,193,107,177.3902999917 in particular. can I trade those?
And the world's like "yeah man, sure thing. Here, have... oh... probably around 0.01% more win chance for those sacrifices."
And he's like ok what can I trade for more then that, because that was pitiful, absolutely pathetic.
"to be fair", says unreality, "your sacrifices are pathetic. you picked a single-sentence description of something that doesn't matter, and then you specified the sacrifice is only until it Does matter."
whatever, says the person who is increasingly less identifiable with Hunger. what can I trade for more then that.
unreality replies "trade your Everything"
...What? replies not-Hunger. I already refused Selfhood. trading everything sounds like trading Selfhood to me, except moreso.
Unreality silently points at the word after "replies" in the above line.
Hunger probably wouldn't have understood the implications this has on the trade instantly. But this isn't Hunger. This is a being which started as a caricature of hunger, then rapidly diverged into basically a mini-me with a tiny note saying "goals: saving Hungers arse". So of course they understand unreality instantly, and agree to sacrifice their entire Not-Hunger existence to increase the odds of Hunger winning. in a sense, this is the second time they have done so, since omakes do that a little and this is the second omake and they pop out of existence at the end of each of these. The first time it was because I needed an ending, and this time it's a trade to reality but I'm also aware it looks kinda like a pattern.
As a result of the trade, Unreality decides to add something extra into the bargain. First, they burn an infinite amount of the superpositional states of Procyon and Not-Hunger for power, as the Ur-mother did (but less evil because in Unreality, none of those states contained any people, only caricatures, and the least caricaturial not-Hunger, who was at least sort-of person-y- the meta-one- sacrificed 'mself willingly.), and then funnel the broken unrealities' energy into the Prime Real Official Accursed-Influenced Not-in-Unreality Rihaku-written Voyaging Realm, where it manifests only in slightest extent, perhaps in the poor case even less effective then a single mote of dust in an eye at the wrong moment, in the way that omakes affect the chances of things happening even without tactics.
This infinite amount of states removed leaves behind a single instance of Procyon, and no Hungers. Now, this won't do! Unreality needs a dramatic, yet ultimately meaningless, finale! That's the extra thing; Unrealitys side of the bargain is already fulfilled. So, Unreality, motivation already fading, goes the low-effort route and conjures within itself a really low-quality author insert.
the sky darkens, then darkens further, then switches right around to being bright again. the text that is this writing itself shifts in its color, turning from white to the pure cyan that I always use for my self-inserts except R!JOE and DLE!JOE and- ok, I guess it's not that universal. turning to the pure cyan I use for Most of my self-inserts. Then the Font becomes Times New Roman, because that's Also the font I use for my self-inserts. Procyon looks on in confusion, consternation, and even some emotions that don't start with C when a bunch of white mist gathers into a place that mysteriously becomes opaque even though rank-augmented Armament senses should really be able to pierce mist. when it clears, the self-insert is clearly visible. Despite being clearly visible, of course, it is impossible to discern its hair color, height, nationality, age, race, political ideology, number of scars, or practically anything besides gender and some ripoff glowing cyan eyes which are actually some LEDs the insert taped to its face so it'll look dramatic. Unfortunately, Procyon is able to immediately punch them into meat-paste, because the Self-insert originates from a setting that is, ah... noticeably lower-scale then even this comparatively low-scale setting Rihakuverse universe. They've only got maybe one infinite cardinality of power, and it's kind of a stretch to call that guy the same guy! really, they're not cut out for dealing with Rank 10; physics is a lot more then a suggestion to this self-insert! Y'see, it's not that the self-insert is Weak. They can dominate the setting they come from, just like any chosen hero or whatever could. but most settings don't go up into infinite or transfinite power levels and for good reason; it's harder for a lot of people to conceptualize and it leads to-
Wait a second they respawned and pulled out one of the energy crystals.
"Hey, me, no, that's the wro*ng name. remember how they never ru*n out and you ca*lled them the infinite *ene*rg*y cryst*als?"
all those *'s are them getting punched into a paste by Procyon and respawning. they shall be omitted for convenience from here. Anyway.
Hey, that's not canon any more. it was retconned to just be a really really large amount of energy which was functionally infinite over human timescales if you stuck to the approved draw-rate.
"yeah, well, this isn't canon either and that was always a dumb retcon anyway. why would you make an incomprehensibly huge energy supply and limit the draw rate."
come on, why don't you-I-just use uh. one of the other things?
"Because all the ones that'd work are at least as stupid as this one, and this one being retconned lets me have this conversation about it anyway."
uh... breaking logic with a sword you super-charged with cyan and redness isn't as stupid as infinite energy from crystals that don't have that.
"Yeah, it's stupider. Why didn't we-i just say the sword made the crystals?"
...It didn't exist yet. get your timelines straight.
"sounds like time for another reeeetttttcooooooon!"
anyway. Since I neither can nor actually want to talk myself out of using the infinite energy crystals, insert-me dodges one of Procyons punches (this is accomplished primarily via shock value, since he's been effectively standing there motionless letting himself repeatedly get pounded to death for what, considering all the interruptions from the punches, has to have been at least five minutes now.), then uses some of his time magic (time magic is lower tier then infinite energy. Obviously.) to freeze time for everything-but-him. This gives him the few seconds needed to pull out another energy crystal (the first one broke. don't ask how releasing infinite energy didn't destroy the universe, and I won't ask why the blood rank doesn't apply to protecting someone hunger owes a blood debt to, that is to say, himself.), conjure a few disks of warped space, and break it in a way that does release the infinite energy. as time unfreezes, Procyon hardly has a second to scream before the energy- focused and redirected to target only them by the spacewarping- vaporizes them. Of course, the only reason procyon isn't able to use rank to avoid this is the inclusion of a second infinite energy crystal whos energy is processed into astral magic which is processed into making-reality-do-what-I-say-ium, which is why procyon tries to scream like a little girl instead of doing anything effective.
This ... "dramatic", yet ultimately meaningless, finale over with, Unreality allows itself to recede into a formless pseudo-anarchy which contains everything which isn't real, until next called on as an explanation for why my omakes very often quickly stop pretending to accurately represent the Voyaging Realm or any of the characters therein.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
JOEbob, I really appreciate the slowly mounting panic as various Calvinball ploys bounce off of Procyon's plot armor. It perfectly mirrors my growing panic over the last week...
and i am loving the way the entire thread has come together to provide encouragement and support for my big-brain idea of turning the Walls of Myth into a forward-facing incendiary grenade w/Vigorflame
and i am loving the way the entire thread has come together to provide encouragement and support for my big-brain idea of turning the Walls of Myth into a forward-facing incendiary grenade w/Vigorflame
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
I'm stuck holding open office hours, and during the process of monologuing at a student until he stopped complaining about his test grade, I had a thought about how I'd run the 'under the hood' mechanics for the upcoming fight:
Rihaku has said that the likeliest outcome is that Procyon's overwhelming power forces us to burn all our rerolls and then use the defensive wish to avoid permadeath. He's also said that only Hunger, Gisena, Letrizia + Versch, and some irrelevant Super-Elite Legionnaires have reaction speeds high enough to matter during the fight. (Aobaru won't have time to make the Walls explode in Procyon's face, and Adorie's bloodline won't kick in, etc.)
That means that there are really only four or five points of uncertainty to model:
1. Hunger's efficacy rating
2. Gisena's efficacy rating
3. Letrizia+Versch's efficacy rating
4. Procyon's efficacy rating
(5? Super-Elite high rank Legionnaires / Republic Prototype Armor / Arcanist interrupt)
Start from the default that Hunger has to beat a DC 95 in order to survive without the Wish. Does that reflect exemplary output from Letrizia and Gisena? Maybe Gisena should have the chance to activate her trap card. Any ploy she devised ahead of time will be facing an uphill battle in order to activate, because of Procyon's Rank guiding the plot away from any hidden traps. Any direct attack might just bounce off. So Gisena's contribution should probably only occur rarely. Maybe she has to beat a DC 75 in order to contribute meaningfully.
Letrizia has more raw power (maybe) and fewer utility options (definitely). If Letrizia contributes meaningfully, it will probably be dramatic, but doing so puts Letrizia in more danger. Maybe Letrizia has to beat a DC 85 in order to help.
This randomizes the party's contribution. But what to do with each roll? Maybe Gisena's contribution is less decisive, but puts her in less danger. For every 5 points by which her roll exceeds 75, lower Hunger's DC by 1. For every 10 points by which her roll falls below 75, add a meaningful injury. By contrast, Letrizia's contribution might be more dramatic, but put her in far more danger. For every 3 points by which Letrizia's roll exceeds 85, lower Hunger's DC by 3. For every 10 points by which Letrizia's roll falls below 100, add a meaningful injury.
(This omits the scenario where Letrizia avoids injury and also contributes nothing. Staying behind the Wall after a failed Sharpbright maneuver might be safe for her, but she'd still take a box of psychic damage from her cowardice...)
Anyway, what this gives us is a scenario where Hunger does his uttermost, and gets whatever score he rolls. Thread Omakes & Tactics, plus the contributions of his party, are what ultimately determine whether Hunger's Uttermost is enough to survive. This has the advantage of further scrambling the probability math on how much help Hunger's rerolls actually provide, because the opposing roll is itself stochastic.
(Also, having some uncertainty about how our allies can contribute makes thread participation into an interesting hyper-parameter in terms of where effort is best allocated. Like, if someone wants to write a vignette about Letrizia putting Procyon into a half-nelson headlock in order to give Hunger an opening, that would have a different value than Gisena frantically reverse-engineering the runes she needs to pierce Totality...)
Rihaku has said that the likeliest outcome is that Procyon's overwhelming power forces us to burn all our rerolls and then use the defensive wish to avoid permadeath. He's also said that only Hunger, Gisena, Letrizia + Versch, and some irrelevant Super-Elite Legionnaires have reaction speeds high enough to matter during the fight. (Aobaru won't have time to make the Walls explode in Procyon's face, and Adorie's bloodline won't kick in, etc.)
That means that there are really only four or five points of uncertainty to model:
1. Hunger's efficacy rating
2. Gisena's efficacy rating
3. Letrizia+Versch's efficacy rating
4. Procyon's efficacy rating
(5? Super-Elite high rank Legionnaires / Republic Prototype Armor / Arcanist interrupt)
Start from the default that Hunger has to beat a DC 95 in order to survive without the Wish. Does that reflect exemplary output from Letrizia and Gisena? Maybe Gisena should have the chance to activate her trap card. Any ploy she devised ahead of time will be facing an uphill battle in order to activate, because of Procyon's Rank guiding the plot away from any hidden traps. Any direct attack might just bounce off. So Gisena's contribution should probably only occur rarely. Maybe she has to beat a DC 75 in order to contribute meaningfully.
Letrizia has more raw power (maybe) and fewer utility options (definitely). If Letrizia contributes meaningfully, it will probably be dramatic, but doing so puts Letrizia in more danger. Maybe Letrizia has to beat a DC 85 in order to help.
This randomizes the party's contribution. But what to do with each roll? Maybe Gisena's contribution is less decisive, but puts her in less danger. For every 5 points by which her roll exceeds 75, lower Hunger's DC by 1. For every 10 points by which her roll falls below 75, add a meaningful injury. By contrast, Letrizia's contribution might be more dramatic, but put her in far more danger. For every 3 points by which Letrizia's roll exceeds 85, lower Hunger's DC by 3. For every 10 points by which Letrizia's roll falls below 100, add a meaningful injury.
(This omits the scenario where Letrizia avoids injury and also contributes nothing. Staying behind the Wall after a failed Sharpbright maneuver might be safe for her, but she'd still take a box of psychic damage from her cowardice...)
Anyway, what this gives us is a scenario where Hunger does his uttermost, and gets whatever score he rolls. Thread Omakes & Tactics, plus the contributions of his party, are what ultimately determine whether Hunger's Uttermost is enough to survive. This has the advantage of further scrambling the probability math on how much help Hunger's rerolls actually provide, because the opposing roll is itself stochastic.
(Also, having some uncertainty about how our allies can contribute makes thread participation into an interesting hyper-parameter in terms of where effort is best allocated. Like, if someone wants to write a vignette about Letrizia putting Procyon into a half-nelson headlock in order to give Hunger an opening, that would have a different value than Gisena frantically reverse-engineering the runes she needs to pierce Totality...)
Just checking before I go to sleep, but has the old "alpha-strike Procyon, then retreat behind the Walls of Myth; rinse and repeat" cheating camping bullshit totally legitimate tactic been brought up?
That is, is it possible to use the Refinement of Movement to move back behind the Walls of Myth, and then simply hunker down and weather Procyon's attacks? Until it powers down its Shroud again? And so basically just... wear away at Procyon that way. EDIT: Or just, not even leave the Walls of Myth at all, after the first big attack; just launch all subsequent attacks from the range of the Walls. Turtle strategies.
Can we use Artful Thorn to make an attack that causes Procyon, or its pilot, to "bleed" metaphorically. Then use the Ring to take the metaphorical bleeding wound, and turn it into a real DOT (damage over time) effect.
Use whatever methods and abilities we have... in order to bolster the Walls of Myth. Make it able to stand up to Procyon's prolonged attacks. Do whatever it takes. Bleed on it. Have Adorie bleed on it. Have Gisena fortify it with Truth or Artifice. Or Time. Or... something, anything.
Try to "Exalted stunt" a freeform version of 'Sword in the Stone' by having Hunger plant his sword upon the Walls... and then channel all his rank into bolstering it and defending it.
In fact, if we did that... That is, if we focused on "boost and repair the Walls of Myth as much as possible, in order to be able to hold off Procyon for as long as possible..." How long could we keep that up? How long could that last? That is, if we had everybody focusing everything on "boosting the Walls of Myth to stand up to Procyon"... how much time could we buy? Could we buy an actual several days? Enough to hit the timing on Realm of Evening?
Does Augustine's Tower of Earth still exist in some form? Physical parts of it? Can we grab it and spot-weld it to the Walls of Myth in order to repair it? (Same with mythic platinum and stuff.) Or did Gisena's Nullity and Hunger's attack, destroy it all?
What about the Armament Fish? What happened to its remains again?
That is, is it possible to use the Refinement of Movement to move back behind the Walls of Myth, and then simply hunker down and weather Procyon's attacks? Until it powers down its Shroud again? And so basically just... wear away at Procyon that way. EDIT: Or just, not even leave the Walls of Myth at all, after the first big attack; just launch all subsequent attacks from the range of the Walls. Turtle strategies.
Can we use Artful Thorn to make an attack that causes Procyon, or its pilot, to "bleed" metaphorically. Then use the Ring to take the metaphorical bleeding wound, and turn it into a real DOT (damage over time) effect.
Use whatever methods and abilities we have... in order to bolster the Walls of Myth. Make it able to stand up to Procyon's prolonged attacks. Do whatever it takes. Bleed on it. Have Adorie bleed on it. Have Gisena fortify it with Truth or Artifice. Or Time. Or... something, anything.
Try to "Exalted stunt" a freeform version of 'Sword in the Stone' by having Hunger plant his sword upon the Walls... and then channel all his rank into bolstering it and defending it.
In fact, if we did that... That is, if we focused on "boost and repair the Walls of Myth as much as possible, in order to be able to hold off Procyon for as long as possible..." How long could we keep that up? How long could that last? That is, if we had everybody focusing everything on "boosting the Walls of Myth to stand up to Procyon"... how much time could we buy? Could we buy an actual several days? Enough to hit the timing on Realm of Evening?
Does Augustine's Tower of Earth still exist in some form? Physical parts of it? Can we grab it and spot-weld it to the Walls of Myth in order to repair it? (Same with mythic platinum and stuff.) Or did Gisena's Nullity and Hunger's attack, destroy it all?
What about the Armament Fish? What happened to its remains again?
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Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If Procyon deploys his Shroud, he'll break through the Walls in short order. He hasn't done that because it's taxing and presumably he'd rather conserve energy for the event of a mostly or fully repaired Verschlengorge or some other Armament tier threat.
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
In the voyaging sea, becoming the foundation for a new continent. I mentioned going back there before but that was for looting it for artifice materials and filling our personal coffers. Anything left could definitely be used to shore up the walls but that would require us using nightmare flight to get there which would mean giving up a key component of our surprise attack. Unfortunate but what we've got is what we have.
Wonder if the Procyon pilot has any blood relatives in the army. If so, wonder if there's voodoo doll potential there. Or hostage I guess... Well, nevermind. Hmm...
... Wonder if there's some way we can bluff them into thinking we can strike through a Shroud? Or through Totality. I mean, with Artful Thorn, we actually kind of can.
Hm, maybe if Letrizia (with the help of Gisena) can help sell it, maybe we can convince them that that was how we defeated and subjugated Letrizia and Verschlengorge or something. And are keeping it as our puppet Armament, using the power of our ring. Old age and treachery (and blatant lies) and all that.
'No, you can't have that Armament -- it's mine! I defeated and looted it fair and square, so it's mine. And the pilot too.' Certainly not because he's the bodyguard, no sirree.
For that matter, can we just sacrifice some of Hunger's own flesh and blood and some Rank -- or bits of his Artifacts or their Advancements -- in order to feed Verschlengorge and power him up extra-fast? ((If Hunger were a better Armament pilot, maybe he could pilot Verschlengorge himself. Alas.)) Wait. Wait wait wait... ...
Or, is it possible to use Death Star and/or Artful Thorn... in order to carve off a big enough piece of Procyon and then feed it to Verschlengorge? Hoping that despite it being metal, that Verschlengorge's Decimation would let it feed off of a powerful enemy anyway. And thus rapidly restore Verschlengorge that way?
In fact, is that a viable possible battle tactic for the Procyon fight?
We have Hunger carve off pieces of Procyon and swift-feed them to Verschlengorge mid-battle, and have Versch power up mid-fight as Procyon is powered down mid-fight? Artful Thorn to inflict crippling, de-limbing, blows on Procyon... in order to provide sustenance for Verschlengorge.
That could be a game-winning tactic for the Procyon battle! We slowly whittle Procyon down, while trying to heal Verschlengorge back up to full. Like a literal DPS race plus a Heal race.
If we manage to go fast enough... we win. That's... that's a battle tactic that could actually see us win the Procyon fight. Wow.
((... For a more gruesome and mass-murderous version of that plan... Hunger tanks Procyon. While Letrizia pilots her mech into the middle of the Republic army. And. Uh. And then unleashes the Grand Decimation attack. While in the middle of the Republic Army and not at any risk of hitting any of Nilfel.))
((I suppose this is also something that could be used in the Hostage Negotiation variant, too. Not just Hunger threatening to cut down the officers. But threatening to unleash Verschlengorge on the soldiers, while Hunger stalemates Procyon.))
((Not an actual plan I'm proposing, actually. Just something I realized at the tail end of writing this post.))
Or maybe if Procyon has some kind of Ultimate Attack... Maybe Gisena and Hunger can ablate that attack and channel it; enough to channel it such that Verschlengorge can directly EAT that attack. And power up that way. How many things can Verschlengorge devour, anyway? How do his Decimation-related abilities work anyway?
Man. If Hunger were piloting Verschlengorge, and using Totality, then... if he used Artful Thorn combined with its Grand Decimation attack, what would happen? Actually, what would happen? If that's still a viable trick, then...
... Or, for that matter... If Versch allows multiple people to undergo Totality, then... What if we used Totality in order to be able to apply the Artful Thorn to Gisena's Nullity Wave? Or used Artful Thorn in combination with Aobaru's Overload attack? Or Aobaru's element overloard combined with Verschlengorge's Grand Decimation?
... Question. Can Adorie's bloodline be used to mitigate the Decimation Curse? I hadn't thought of this before, but... Huh. Maybe that might be a form of Decimator's Affliction curse mitigation! Adorie being able to resist the existential diminishment of Hunger, and people, afflicted by the, er, Affliction.
... Wonder if there's some way we can bluff them into thinking we can strike through a Shroud? Or through Totality. I mean, with Artful Thorn, we actually kind of can.
Hm, maybe if Letrizia (with the help of Gisena) can help sell it, maybe we can convince them that that was how we defeated and subjugated Letrizia and Verschlengorge or something. And are keeping it as our puppet Armament, using the power of our ring.
Old age and treachery (and blatant lies) and all that.'No, you can't have that Armament -- it's mine! I defeated and looted it fair and square, so it's mine. And the pilot too.' Certainly not because he's the bodyguard, no sirree.
For that matter, can we just sacrifice some of Hunger's own flesh and blood and some Rank -- or bits of his Artifacts or their Advancements -- in order to feed Verschlengorge and power him up extra-fast? ((If Hunger were a better Armament pilot, maybe he could pilot Verschlengorge himself. Alas.)) Wait. Wait wait wait... ...
Or, is it possible to use Death Star and/or Artful Thorn... in order to carve off a big enough piece of Procyon and then feed it to Verschlengorge? Hoping that despite it being metal, that Verschlengorge's Decimation would let it feed off of a powerful enemy anyway. And thus rapidly restore Verschlengorge that way?
In fact, is that a viable possible battle tactic for the Procyon fight?
We have Hunger carve off pieces of Procyon and swift-feed them to Verschlengorge mid-battle, and have Versch power up mid-fight as Procyon is powered down mid-fight? Artful Thorn to inflict crippling, de-limbing, blows on Procyon... in order to provide sustenance for Verschlengorge.
That could be a game-winning tactic for the Procyon battle! We slowly whittle Procyon down, while trying to heal Verschlengorge back up to full. Like a literal DPS race plus a Heal race.
If we manage to go fast enough... we win. That's... that's a battle tactic that could actually see us win the Procyon fight. Wow.
((... For a more gruesome and mass-murderous version of that plan... Hunger tanks Procyon. While Letrizia pilots her mech into the middle of the Republic army. And. Uh. And then unleashes the Grand Decimation attack. While in the middle of the Republic Army and not at any risk of hitting any of Nilfel.))
((I suppose this is also something that could be used in the Hostage Negotiation variant, too. Not just Hunger threatening to cut down the officers. But threatening to unleash Verschlengorge on the soldiers, while Hunger stalemates Procyon.))
((Not an actual plan I'm proposing, actually. Just something I realized at the tail end of writing this post.))
Or maybe if Procyon has some kind of Ultimate Attack... Maybe Gisena and Hunger can ablate that attack and channel it; enough to channel it such that Verschlengorge can directly EAT that attack. And power up that way. How many things can Verschlengorge devour, anyway? How do his Decimation-related abilities work anyway?
Man. If Hunger were piloting Verschlengorge, and using Totality, then... if he used Artful Thorn combined with its Grand Decimation attack, what would happen? Actually, what would happen? If that's still a viable trick, then...
... Or, for that matter... If Versch allows multiple people to undergo Totality, then... What if we used Totality in order to be able to apply the Artful Thorn to Gisena's Nullity Wave? Or used Artful Thorn in combination with Aobaru's Overload attack? Or Aobaru's element overloard combined with Verschlengorge's Grand Decimation?
... Question. Can Adorie's bloodline be used to mitigate the Decimation Curse? I hadn't thought of this before, but... Huh. Maybe that might be a form of Decimator's Affliction curse mitigation! Adorie being able to resist the existential diminishment of Hunger, and people, afflicted by the, er, Affliction.