I had to search on google for what Cathedrelion was. funny enough it DOES find one of your old posts as a search result
One thing you guys may be missing here is that it wasn't Hunger who decided to blow up the Azure. Gisena, the person he gave the Azure to, decided that she valued exterminating the Orcish threat over the Ring of Power.
That's not really the point to me.
It's not that it wasn't Hunger's choice to propose it, It's that Hunger went through it with basically zero hesitation
after all we went through to save it.
It's a bit like.. well, we went through a LOT of effort to save someone from eternal torture, but then sacrificed him as soon as it was convenient.
Now, to be fair, the ring is NOT a person, and while it would not WANT to die, it was also prepared for it before we saved it... but I expected some more sympathy/loyalty for our "servant ring".
Even just a "I don't want to, but it's either a ring or a universe" scene would have been fine, I think, but Hunger basically go "ok, let me see if my sword agrees"!
So a Shroud equals to your Soul Evocation? Interesting. I wonder if Battle Magic fits into this at all; Unlikely given it had virtually no votes compared to Accretion and Soul Evocative..
well, if accretion is the "weight" of the pressure, basically the gravity of your soul, and Soul evocation is the "Light of your soul", some power that represents your inner nature (and we basically rule-lawyered it a LOT to bring it to Archmage level), the closest analogy I can imagine for Battle Magic would be that its spells are basically.. well, cheat codes on the rules of reality.
They allow you to do one specific thing, while leaving everything else unchanged and/or unaffected.
Your attacks suddenly do more damage, even if you're not actually using more strength. A lightning is going to pass through this specific slice of space, act on whatever it hits for a few seconds, and then disappear. You can heal a specific type of injury, basically deleting it or exchanging it for a lesser one, but not anything else...
Counterpoint: Sticking various magical Goops to your Soul absolutely could hurt. Ordinal Mages, for example, enjoy some benefits from having no other available magic systems.
On the other hand they can also boost each other, and while ordinal purist get a 2x growth rate, that's not really THAT great of a boost at the very high tiers, especially when you can get multiple synergistic systems.
Then again, Haeliel right now is a high cursebearer, so presumably >tier 3 omnipotent, so she can likely be an ordinal purist while also using other magic systems, because logic is optional at those levels somehow.
I didn't really mean Quintessence, is just... well, she's giving us support graces. She's basically making us a sorcerer then, and integrating graces into Archmage!
It's not intended to 'balm the sting,' it simply wasn't Hunger's plan in the first place. In-universe Hunger did not know how Archmage was to be brought about since it's Gisena's invention, and from Gisena's point of view she would of course take the action with the highest percentage chance against Dien (getting Archmage) if it was feasible. And from Hunger's perspective of course sundering the Azure is more palatable than losing to Dien with all the unthinkable horrors that entails, to say nothing of the personal importance of the task to Gisena. Hunger has always operated from a position of imperfect information; information on 'consequences' given from an omniscient perspective should never be taken for granted.
Ambitious efforts sometimes have risks; surely the voters did not choose to fight Procyon knowing for certain that Hunger would win!
technically, they did, mostly because of defensive wishes.
It was still a stupid decision by the way, I'll always stand by that.
Voters should have fallen back and farmed picks!
That said, my "problem", insofar as there actually IS a problem (debatable), is mostly that I expected Hunger to at least hesitate a moment before destroying the Ring he spent so much effort to save, and that swore loyalty to him in exchange.
Let me put it like this: if the key to unlock Archmage had been to sacrifice Aobaru or Letrizia for it, beyond the possibility of resurrection, would Hunger STILL have done it?
I expect he might consider it, especially if they were willing... but he'd hesitate a LOT.
Now, he certainly doesn't have that level of loyalty to the ring.. but I STILL expected SOME hesitation!
Who needs a wishing well? You have Archmage! Mythos itself is merely a facet of Hunger's dominion these days.
And with our dominion over space, we can probably put Nilfel in our pocket before leaving for the next universe!
Mm, not really... it depends on how much of Cathedrelion one believes is canon!
...I mean, they DO have giant robots piloted by teenagers...
This could be an opportune time to pull a partial Pittauro and reread the quest
and thus "pulling a Pittauro" becomes slang in the Rihaku community!
Yes, I AM proud of myself for it
Losing the Azure is actually quite painful, since Hunger went through the entire Temple arc to get it. The party's capabilities as a whole aren't diminished - rather the opposite, in fact - but Archmage probably should've mentioned a non-Arete cost required to awaken it; some people were against Broken Kaleidoscope simply because it sacrificed the ring. However, it's hard to argue against the exigency of our circumstances. Hunger himself accepted and assisted with the Azure's destruction, so we can only trust his judgment of its necessity, just as he trusted Gisena's.
Yeah, basically this.
It just came out of nowhere, especially because Broken Kaleidoscope SPECIFICALLY mentioned that, while Archmage didn't.
Sure, the fact the ring was involved in awakening a soul evocation could be predicted. Possibly even its connection to the Imprisoner.
The fact it would require the destruction of the Azure? THAT was unexpected, as did the aplomb/calmness with which he appeared to accept the need for it.
Burning Mirror of Desire is also kind of terrifying, since the Seal of Odyssial being broken means Nilul might be able to target Uly with it.
Yeah, except that Unshattered Kaleidoscope hard-counters it.
Basically you're just giving Odyssial another, even stronger self to control.
