Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Thanks for the reminder. I have replaced the Xs with Gs.
A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
- Original
Tyrant_Rayne
Probably Not Evil… Maybe
- Location
- Canada
[ ] Primordial Form [1 Denar]
[ ] Advice From The Ancestor [1 Obol]
[ ] Sign of the Lion [4 Obols]
[ ] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[ ] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[ ] Sign of the Skull [5 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[ ] Spirit Doctor [1 Drachma]
[ ] Red Gun [4 Drachmas]
[ ] Sign of the Accursed [1 Denar]
[ ] A Sacrifice to Lethe [+3 Obols and +2 Drachmas]
[ ] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas [+1 Denar]
Become a Primordial with power over souls.
Do soul stuff to make the gun stronger.
Since I'm already going to have enough power to kill one of the kings eventually then may as well take the greater Geas. Get the praxis and develop it to support my soul shenanigans.
[ ] Advice From The Ancestor [1 Obol]
[ ] Sign of the Lion [4 Obols]
[ ] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[ ] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[ ] Sign of the Skull [5 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[ ] Spirit Doctor [1 Drachma]
[ ] Red Gun [4 Drachmas]
[ ] Sign of the Accursed [1 Denar]
[ ] A Sacrifice to Lethe [+3 Obols and +2 Drachmas]
[ ] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas [+1 Denar]
Become a Primordial with power over souls.
Do soul stuff to make the gun stronger.
Since I'm already going to have enough power to kill one of the kings eventually then may as well take the greater Geas. Get the praxis and develop it to support my soul shenanigans.
"A smith puts down his hammer at the conclusion of his greatest work because he knows he will never again attain the heights he once reached."
-The Curtain Rises, Even Further Beyond
My impression was that Ring was like Progression-/++ in training and action respectively, which would translate to 33%/1000% modifier.
But I'm not sure, that's just how I treated it so far when advocating for stuff like Progression etc.
- Location
- Peterborough, NH, USA
Underworld's Hero
[P] Greedy Plan: Fallen Hero.
[P] Primordial Form [1 Denar]
[P] Renaissance Man [3 Obols]
[P] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[P] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[P] Sign of the Lion [1 Drachma]
[P] Craftsman's Constellation [1 Drachma]
[P] Spirit Doctor [1 Drachma]
[P] Sign of the Skull [5 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[P] Sign of the Dragon [6 Obols and 2 Drachmas]
[P] Sign of the Accursed [1 Denar]
[P] Winged Sandals [3 Obols]
[P] Red Gun [4 Drachmas]
[P] Staff of Echoes [1 Denar]
[P] Specter-Hunter Geas [+2 Drachmas]
[P] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas [+1 Denar]
Having selected a domain that roughly translated to 'Wholeness' which seemed to be ever-so-slowly repairing the damage from when Kronos killed him even at 1% strength, Hercules, or rather a Hercules, stepped off the boat after a short ride, having requested a landing at a good spot to get a headstart on destroying Wraiths. Thus, he had been deposited in the Ghoul Woods, a small forest Charon knew to harbor a number of Wraiths serving under a Specter with ambitions of becoming a new Lesser King. A good start. First, however, he enacted the ritual of the Sign of the Dragon for the first of it's potential benefits in order to recover some of his semi-divine strength immediately, and, almost more importantly, spent the next 24 hours taking advantage of the training boost, working with his new equipment to get their basic uses down.
Using the Staff of Echoes to render himself completely silent, and the sheer mobility of flight, it was a simple matter to sneak up on a Wraith in the middle of... a meal and capture them for the Red Gun, which he immediately began to burn to strengthen the weapon. He repeated this process a number of times, as even the baseline Titanic enhancement he'd received allowed him to rip apart the Wraiths barehanded, so he could dump a fairly large proportion of them into the Gun in relative safety, as one of the simplest methods of gaining greater capabilities. It wasn't that he expected to be a match for even a Lesser Specter King in terms of raw ability, at least not until he'd recovered quite a bit of his old strength, but the Wholeness Titanic Domain was of great use in harming others. For one thing, it let him inflict wounds that ignored the 'snap back' effect of ghostly bodies, meaning the wounds remained in place even if they ought to have been healing, while his own 'healing' abilities were vastly improved. Combined with the Spirit Doctor's power, a common Wraith would have to worry about 'bleeding out' like a living human from getting an arm ripped off or a hole punched in their gut, while nothing short of decapitation or similarly grievous injury was any serious risk to the hero.
Obeying his instincts, he leaned back as what felt like a spiritual wound in a humanoid form leapt at him, the blow tearing a huge section out of a tree and making it fall over. Smashing a fist into what was clearly a Specter, if a minor one based on Chiron's description, he could feel it trying to drain his soul, and finding no purchase. Combining Titanhood with the Sign of the Lion's mystical resistance, he was more or less immune to the soul-draining of a basic Specter. Though, he was expecting a Lesser King might still be a major problem for him on that front, nevermind the physical, at least between now and the second Stage. Best not to tempt fate though. He'd learned that lesson ages ago.
Taking flight, the Red Gun was fired directly downward in it's basic mode, dealing damage to the Specter that refused to even begin healing. Slamming both feet onto the wretched ghost, he caved it's head in with the full weight of his body. He kept this up for a few days, gradually spiraling inwards as his Titanic domain fixed him up. 1% of a Titan's power made it slow going, but it was a domain focused on repairing or dismantling a being, which gave him an advantage. By the time a week had passed, he had a solid hundred Wraiths and 5 Specters to his name, which might support the cannibalism he'd suspected from the moment he'd learned about the Specters and their relationship with the Wraiths. Most likely, word had spread and they'd retreated deeper into the Ghoul Woods. Thus, he decided to leave.
He ought to be free of the lesser Geas for the next 6 months, more than enough time for the second Stage to kick in, though Wraiths and Specters were the only source of souls he could feed to the Red Gun without qualms, meaning advancing it's power would slow to a crawl if he didn't grab them whenever possible. What tipped the balance was that the higher-end Specters could still be dangerous from their mere presence, he could really use some more time to practice with his new powers, and he really ought to start trying to track down the Deathless in order to get a support network for his anti-Specter King efforts.
Within a few minutes of leaving the woods behind, however, he found himself in a battlefield, a skull-staffed mage of some stripe summoning him, part of a party that seemed to be in bad shape, surrounded by a horde of beasts. He cracked his neck and asked "I assume you want me to kill the beasts so they don't kill your party?" and was blasting the Red Gun before the mage had even finished nodding, gaining some breathing room as several of the beasts suffered major wounds and reared back, widening the circle they had formed a few feet.
This, in turn, allowed Hercules enough time to let Wholeness start healing the wounds of the party, getting them back on their feet, if not in a condition he'd be comfortable leaving them to fend for themselves in. When the beasts started to close back in, he was already moving, crushing limbs, breaking necks, and generally causing as much damage and debilitation as possible while the party got their wind back. The cleric, who appeared to be nearly dead, was stabilized by this point, but only the rogue, who had the least in the way of wounds besides the mage, was in fighting shape. The good news was, rogues excelled at taking advantage of big distracting beat sticks like himself that caused mass carnage, and multiplying that carnage by hitting all the exposed weak points it brought to the fore. For example, poison darts became a common sight for the next few minutes. Even if the rogue in question wasn't in shape to actually stab much of anything, slowing and weakening them so the group wasn't swarmed under was quite doable.
After a few more minutes, the fighter recovered enough to join the fight, and the carpet of corpses was thick enough that the mage had started levitating them to form a crude wall for the party to fall back to when they started to take injuries again. They were clearly experienced, and he got the impression that this had been some kind of ambush or trap, or even just pure bad luck, rather than anything they'd done wrong in specific.
Once the cleric finally regained consciousness, the fight was theirs to lose. Though the beasts had died in large enough droves that there was clearly some sort of guiding intellect behind this, as they ought to have cut their losses before forming ramparts out of the fallen, they simply couldn't deal enough damage to keep his general repair aura and the cleric's dedicated healing spells from fixing any damage they did do. Not to mention, he wouldn't get tired, while the beasts were sapped of a little stamina with every moment as they inched towards disrepair just from being near him, and the same effect was reversed for the adventurers, actively preventing them from tiring.
Sure enough the last beast was felled some 20 minutes after he'd arrived.
"So, what's the story here?" he asked. No point being impolite. The mage was likely under the impression he had to do as... she said. Without the beasts to distract him, the supernatural pall of darkness their cowl generated was no real obstacle to him. Regardless, no reason to draw suspicion.
"We're in the middle of clearing out the Ebon Lord of Yuvrov's keep. Evidently, he didn't take kindly to our romping through his forces, and sent waves of summoned familiars on us. They ambushed us from the direction we came from, and we had a fighting retreat here. Ymilrin summoned you, and here we are." the fighter responded.
"I'll release you once we've taken him down." said mage stated, seeing the question in his gaze she clarified. "We've almost completed our mission to save the world from him, so there isn't much point in having you stick around any longer than that."
"Fine by me." he shrugged, as the cleric ensured everyone was at 100% before they continued. It wasn't really a problem for him as long as they didn't try to have him stay for 6 months or longer. Otherwise, the money could be useful, or the magic, as the case may be.
AN: The backstory here is that the ghost is technically an Eidolon, specifically that of an alternate Hercules, but a plot similar to that of the original Rick Riordan Percy Jackson series occurred when he was around, and he managed to grievously injure Kronos to the point the Olympians were able to force him back into hibernation, even as he was aged to death in the process. Being aged to death effectively reduced him to a normal human physique, and similarly cost him his equipment, as this technically qualifies as the injury that killed him. It doesn't help that he got killed by Kronos exerting his powers. As the big boss of the Titans, he's nasty even by their standards.
The point is, where an ordinary hero or demigod would get 10 Obols, 4 Drachmas, and 1 Denar, Herc gets 20, 8, and 2. Praxis, Dragon, and Staff of Echoes each offer a potential path towards killing the Greater Specter Kings, which Herc would probably want to do anyway. Plus the Red Gun would make 'eating' Specters of direct benefit to Herc, and as a Greek Hero, he's not going to have much in the way of qualms regarding killing people, especially not monstrosities lie these. Meanwhile, the various Necromantic jobs involving combat would be largely trivialized by Titanhood, and the sheer variety of powers here. Simply waiting four years to achieve Stage 3 and helping out the Deathless on their campaign against the Specter Kings, if not the Unseen since Herc would probably take some time to figure out what was up with him, would be fairly simple. There is some risk from the Necromancy stuff, but the lifespan-length invocations of Knight of Death are supposed to be very rare, and I sort of doubt binding Herc to be an Undercroft Guardian for a century is something that would be common. If he's spending a significant length of time in the living world, he's likely to be spending time on the Praxis and research into the Red Gun and Staff of Echoes.
You might be wondering why Herc would be willing to make himself a Titan. It's a pretty simple 'fight fire with fire' thought process. It's explicitly spelled out that killing Titans is nearly impossible, and so he expects Kronos to show up again sooner or later. He'd like to be able to make sure he can put down his grandfather without dying next time, which is one of the reasons he grabbed Wholeness, as it should be possible to effectively render a Titan incapable of regenerating in any reasonable timeframe, and thus trapping it becomes fairly simple. Conversely, if the Olympians decide he's too dangerous, they'll struggle to put him down because he's a fast healer even by their standards.
By the by @Birdsie this is something Greedy could access, yes? Given she's long since gotten Death as a Domain, not to mention various traveling powers.
2055 words, above this line.
Last edited:
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
By the rules of the CYOA, no one should have that amount of wealth, but I don't think you've ever allowed that to stop you. (Although I confess the scenario itself is interesting.)
Also, for the builds that take Primordial and then take the Specter Kings for granted, keep in mind that people know that a new Primordial now exists, and they can simply use Titanomachian tactics against you - which is to say, ganging up en masse. A fullly-fledged titan could handle several Specter Kings or Gods, but not *all* Specters or *all* Gods.
Last edited:
Gabbie
That One Writer
- Location
- Italy
- Pronouns
- They/Them
FORM
[Z]Primordial Form: Titan of Death - Good luck to the Specter Kings, I come to take my rightful place here. I'll have plenty of time to grow in power and train all of my skills.
ABILITIES
[Z]Sign of the Bear - Stealth, superpowers, self-enhancement, and possibly divination. Hell yeah.
[Z] Sign of the Skull - A Shattering Blow that requires no Shattering Blow, that I can effortlessly cast once a day. Why not?
[Z] Sign of the Accursed - Well, this is the actual Shattering Blow. The Praxis can do anything, so long as I train.
ARTIFACTS
[Z] Winged Sandals - Flight is literally the only thing missing in my kit.
[Z] Armor of Terror - Because I gotta look the part of a newly-arrived Death King, don't I?
DRAWBACKS
[Z] Specter-Hunter Geas (+2 Drachma) - Will they even be a problem? Plus, I get rewards.
[Z] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas (+1 Denar) - Will they even be a problem? Plus, I would've done it anyway. I want to take over this hellhole. Heh. Hellhole. Get it?
[Z]Primordial Form: Titan of Death - Good luck to the Specter Kings, I come to take my rightful place here. I'll have plenty of time to grow in power and train all of my skills.
ABILITIES
[Z]Sign of the Bear - Stealth, superpowers, self-enhancement, and possibly divination. Hell yeah.
[Z] Sign of the Skull - A Shattering Blow that requires no Shattering Blow, that I can effortlessly cast once a day. Why not?
[Z] Sign of the Accursed - Well, this is the actual Shattering Blow. The Praxis can do anything, so long as I train.
ARTIFACTS
[Z] Winged Sandals - Flight is literally the only thing missing in my kit.
[Z] Armor of Terror - Because I gotta look the part of a newly-arrived Death King, don't I?
DRAWBACKS
[Z] Specter-Hunter Geas (+2 Drachma) - Will they even be a problem? Plus, I get rewards.
[Z] Greater Specter-Hunter Geas (+1 Denar) - Will they even be a problem? Plus, I would've done it anyway. I want to take over this hellhole. Heh. Hellhole. Get it?
Last edited:
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It took Hunger nine months of intense, dedicated grinding to get even one additional Imprisoner tech. Are you suggesting you'd like to stall for another 18 with the Apocryphal waiting in the wings just to set this up? Putting that aside, you're also assuming that the Praxis tech and IN will stack perfectly, even though we already have a precedent (Imperial Sky: Prowess) for huge ISH improvements not stacking like that at all. Even beyond that, assuming the Refinement of War would work with Always Forward as opposed to High Refinement is unknown.
Relying on wholly unknown factors and speculation like this is more than a bit ??? It's not as though Rihaku gives us free reign with the advancements we can access, see: no speed focused RoB variant.
Last edited:
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
LMFAO, rip Achilles
Huh. if the Inner Circle is on par with the Great Specter Kings, oppose them, and (I'm guessing) are rather more dispositionally equipped to work together... why haven't they picked off any of the Great Specter Kings? Or have they, and there used to be more? Or are they limited in their capacity for direct action because a big splashy fight would draw the attention of the Unseen who they also work against, and they can't contend against him? I'm guessing I probably answered my own question with the last one, but I am still curious enough to seek confirmation.
I don't really understand his motivation for offering this, if the potential consequences for him personally are so dire.
Is there some kind of drawback or cooldown for overclocking it? As written I'm not sure why you wouldn't want to just do that all the time.
So... is the capture mode not available at baseline, or are there actually three modes available at baseline?
How immutable are these wounds? Could Spirit Doctor heal them? How does this work with Celestine Form's promise of eternal beauty?
So, does "alternatively" mean that you can't take both the greater and the regular specter-hunter geas?
It's very high-reward, yes, but also extremely high-risk. People really shouldn't be taking that option without a very good plan to survive the consequences for long enough to benefit from the rewards.
[UP] Celestine Form (Domain: Artificery) [2 Drachmas]
[UP] Advice From The Ancestor [1 Obol]
[UP] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[UP] Craftsman's Constellation [1 Drachma]
[UP] Spirit Doctor [1 Drachma]
[UP] Winged Sandals [3 Obols]
[UP] Sowilo [5 Obols or 1 Drachma]
[UP] Staff of Echoes [1 Denar]
[UP] Specter-Hunter Geas [+2 Drachmas]
The thesis here is to achieve maximum synergy in becoming a crazy-strong crafter of artifacts and such. Hence, starting with Celestine Form - in addition to immediate physical power, protection, beauty/charisma, and quality of life, the domain will enhance and fuel your success in this strategy to increasing levels until you're 25% of the way to being Hephaestus off of this purchase alone. Then, we add Craftsman's Constellation. If having a connection to the Domain of Artificery won't help you in crafting something dope under the metaphysical light of that constellation the next night and every year thereafter, I'll eat my ectoplasmic hat. And on the flip side, having effective centuries of experience in everything gives you the practical grounding to be the foundation to your metaphysical affinity from your Domain.
I'm also cautiously optimistic that this will synergize with Spirit Doctor. The ability stipulates that it isn't limited to healing - you can also alter. So why not craft yourself, or others? Go full mad scientist with it and power yourself up Doctor Apocalypse-style, why the fuck not.
Then, we buy as many artifacts that tie into this as we can afford. The idea there is that the Domain of Artificery will enhance your ability to get good use out of them, or potentially even to enhance or reverse engineer them. Winged Sandals and Sowilo work for this build because overclocking Sowilo will let you basically activate videogame-style objective tagging and path mapping for hunting down reagents and such for your artificing, and Winged Sandals will help you get there at maximum speed. And the Staff of Echoes is there for fuck-off power, vast utility once you unlock its more advanced powers (which your Domain should help you do at an accelerated pace), and the end-game promise of contacting the creator eventually.
I'm genuinely sad I couldn't fit the Aegis into this build, though - my first idea for something to craft under the Constellation was something that would enable the Aegis to float and operate itself independently, automatically interposing itself between you and threats with preternatural speed and the skill of a born warrior like Achilles. Without clarification on whether Spirit Doctor can fix the wounds from A Ghost's Wound I couldn't justify it, though - I didn't drop 2 Drachma on getting a Celestine Form just to turn around and uggo myself up for all eternity after all. And the Sacrifice to Lethe is just a hard nope from me, voluntary ego-death is a pass for sure.
Ferryman's Spell is there for very long-range mobility - you use that to put yourself in the general area of wherever you think Sowilo is pointing you, and then finish the hunt with the Winged Sandals. If you aren't sure where Sowilo is pointing you exactly, why not use the Ferryman's Spell a few times and triangulate? Advice from the Ancestor is theoretically there to provide currency to pay the Ferryman. But, in practice you should be able to make bank from crafting stuff for and healing people anyway, since you're going to be incredibly awesome at both of those things and those are services that are basically always in high demand. So it's not really important for that.
So the real value of Advice from the Ancestor at that point is that it gives you a completely legal, Unseen-approved method to stay in touch with the living world and specifically gives you a window into magical academies across the multiverse. Since the spell is matching you with people your expertise is best suited to assist, and you have both the Domain of Artificery and the Craftsman's Constellation, you'll probably get called in to consult on a lot of magical artificing/engineering projects. This is a potential way to get exposed to all sorts of different magical crafting traditions. Including ones that you don't already know, because your connection to the Domain of Artificery and your effective centuries of experience from the Constellation means you should be able to swiftly and intuitively grasp new traditions and concepts, so the spell would still match you with people who actually had new ideas to offer you. So now you've got a metaphysical connection to a Domain, effective centuries of experience and the ability to yearly craft something empowered by the Constellation, and a steady trickle of fresh ideas from across the multiverse.
That's all the path to power stuff. This build also has excellent survivability, even with the Specter-Hunter Geas (more on that Geas later). Celestine Form gives you great protection right off the bat. Spirit Doctor lets you heal basically anything that actually does manage to hurt you. Winged Sandals give you superb mobility. Sowilo lets you literally magically dampen all hostility in your environment. And if worst comes to worst, the Staff of Echoes gives you obscene fuck-off destructive power.
However, there's more to it. The build also gives you a great deal of what you might call socially based survivability. To wit, people don't like it when somebody kills the best healer and craftsman around. They don't like it a lot, generally. And that potentially includes people much stronger than you in raw power, because just because they've got the power doesn't mean they can replicate the specialized, highly-skilled, and highly in-demand services you can offer. I would expect it to be remarkably viable to the point of probably being outright easy to get invited to live in Elysium, for instance, even without your ability to just prove your worth in combat between Celestine Form and the Staff of Echoes.
So, let's circle back to the Specter-Hunter Geas now. This is an absolutely fantastic "drawback" to take if you can swing it, to the point that I feel the scare quotes there are justified. I want to call attention to this bit in particular:
Emphasis added. What other drawback will literally pay you for taking it as long as you're awesome enough to be great at hunting the Hannibal Lecter-ass magical serial killers of the spirit world? And you're definitely, definitely awesome enough. Celestine Form alone makes you stronk enough to take on moderate-power Wraiths no problem AFAICT, and might even be enough to give you a shot at taking down a full Specter (emphasis on "might," since I think it'd still be a chancy fight by my read, but still). Now add in hella combat-relevant mobility from the Winged Sandals and unstoppable ranged firepower from the Staff of Echoes. Yeah, you can mow these fucks down IMO. That's without even getting into your ability to recruit an adventuring party to help you take them down - the promise of magical artifacts (also known colloquially as "sick loot") and/or guaranteed supernaturally-awesome healing will let you hire people that mere money can't even tempt anymore.
And, shit, the fuckers literally can't even hide from you once they realize you're buzzsawing through them. Because you can overclock Sowilo and literally get magical pathfinding for the best route to successfully track and take them down, and catch up with them using the Winged Sandals or even the Ferryman's Spell if they really got a head start. And if you do draw the negative attention of somebody you can't handle (yet), like one of the Great Specter Kings? Well, as I mentioned above, I would expect it to be extremely viable to get invited to live in Elysium, and Charon made it clear that even the Great Specter Kings can't get at you in there. So as long as you've got enough distance from them that Charon is willing to show up, you can just pop Ferryman's Spell and portal back into the town safe zone RPG-style.
Honestly, if I could take this drawback twice in exchange for double the numerical commitment (twenty moderate-power Wraiths a month, two Specters a year) I absolutely would in a heartbeat. And, y'know, then I could afford the Aegis as I so badly wanted to.
1324 of my own words below the build.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
First Blood
In hindsight, perhaps choosing to be an enemy of the world was a poor decision.
In the dreamwalker's defence, it was hardly the worst decision she'd made along the way.
-
The first thing the girl did upon arriving in the world was to stagger backwards from a cliff, almost falling on her ass but catching herself with preternatural grace, despite the heavy weight of her backpack. The second thing she did was lie flat on her belly and slowly crawl forwards through the mud until her eyes peeked out over the edge. The third thing she did was stare like an idiot at the sight before her.
The drop was sharp, a wedge cut into the world as though by chisel or blade. The side was covered in striations and layers, beginning with the brown of loam and then mars-red rock, but mid way through transitioned into a deep, foreign maroon until it reached the frothing white rapids at the bottom. The cliffside was largely unmarred, but here and there, she could pick out craggy branches anchored to the walls, stubbornly clinging to life.
Slowly being overcome with vertigo, she scuttled backwards and slowly picked herself up off the ground before turning around in an attempt to orient herself, only to be greeted with the densest forest she'd ever seen in her life. There were towering trees of myriad shapes and colours, forming a rainbow canopy that filtered the hot tropical sun into dim pillars of light here and there in the rare spot the branches didn't overlap. The undergrowth flourished despite the relative darkness, forming a seemingly impassable wall of plant matter at waist height.
With the tremendous physical enhancements she'd been granted, she could no doubt plough through the foliage or make use of the explosive force of her blood to clear a path that would risk drawing the attention of predators the mage wasn't sure she was ready to face. More importantly, she just didn't want to, not when better options were available.
"Please just work," she said to herself before stretching her hand to the nearest tree, pressing her thumb against middle and ring fingers and lowering her arm slowly, making prayers under her breath. And as though mirroring her, that tree sent down a branch to her side, bending by some invisible weight. She knew by instinct she could affix it there and begin twisting it into her desired shape. Instead, she simply sat upon the branch and allowed it to lift her high into the canopy, as if taken up by a kindly ent.
It began as a giggle, a yipping noise from deep in her throat before escalating into a bark, then a cackle of hyena laughter. She tried to suppress it as best she could but failed entirely in the face of her euphoria. Magic! Real magic. Not sleight of hand, nor the intangible power of occult ritual, nor the "miracle of modern technology." No, this was real sorcery, originating solely from her will and with real, obvious, impossible effect. She almost fell off her perch as she kicked her legs in the air while her mind looped the memory and each iteration only made the smile on her face grow warmer.
A soft whump was followed by a crushing impact striking her back. She was knocked clear off the tree and sent hurtling to the ground. She heard a snarl and the tearing of cloth as some creature tried to claw her and seize her neck, getting a mouthful of tough fabric instead. The pack saved her from having her throat torn out, but it couldn't keep her from the landing.
It felt like she was hit by a truck. Her joints creaked in their frame, and she let out a choked scream as her brain rattled around her skull. With adrenaline and desperation, she somehow managed to scramble onto all fours, and suddenly the weight of her attacker left her back. She wheeled around and pushed herself back with her hands and legs digging in the dirt, trying to create some distance.
The creature she saw would've been beautiful in any other circumstance. It had the sleek profile of a big cat, long of limb and fang with speckled green fur and slitted pupils. As it was, she only started moving faster, trying to get up and run. But it was already too late; the monster was already lowering itself for a pounce.
By some instinct in her, not from reason or reflex but somewhere more fundamental still, she raised her hand and reached out with her spirit to feel her enemy. There was a moment of quiet, and just as it was about to leap, she clenched her fist.
The cat locked up as though she'd reached into its chest and grasped its heart to still the beating. It fell over stiffly and yet was silent, throat locked in place though its eyes were wildly darting about and filthy yellow foam filled its mouth. The blood mage could see inside it, caught every errant twitch of its body as muscle and sinew struggled desperately against blood. What had once been a ferocious predator was only a panicking, helpless beast held captive to her will.
She felt a bile rise in the back of her mouth but couldn't stop herself staring at what she was doing. It was only when a strangled whimper escaped its throat that she regained the presence of mind to render it mercifully unconscious.
It was over. For now, at least. For better or worse, this was the girls' new life. Rather than deal with what had just happened, she stood up and began shaping the tree. Where once it was hesitant, now it happened swiftly and steadily, branches twisting and turning hither and yon. Knots built on knots gradually, and the tree mage felt an intangible bloom of magic brush against her spirit, like the gentle caress of leaves rustling in an invisible breeze.
The end result was a tree hunched over, once high branches now touching the ground and wrapping around each other in an arboreal embrace. Appropriately enough, it looked almost surreptitious to the girl's eye, a pickpocket ducking his head in a crowd to avoid attention. It would deflect attention from all manner of living things. Not perfectly, but well enough to hide her from anything that might plausibly stumble upon this area.
Next, she turned her attention to the collapsed body of her enemy. Digging through her pack for the sharp spike burin, she stomped to the thing, knelt by its side and raised her tool high up. And then kept it there. And then paused, looking at the handful of scars that littered its body, faint patches where fur was thin or faded. And then slowly lowered her weapon before simply making a nick in the animal's side away, drawing out a few drops of blood that she absorbed into her skin.
"Better be grateful, you little bastard," she muttered to herself, "When I wake you up, I wanna see your dumb ass run to the hills, see what happens if you don't."
She then got up and backed away from it, continuing with mumbled threats of violence and dire retribution if it had the guts to keep fighting. Despite her words, she roused it anyway, reaching out with her magic, this time not to seize but to invigorate. As soon as she finished, it leapt to all fours with a sudden jolt of surprised alacrity before staring at her, eyes wide and posture tense, as though ready to jump again. They tensed, caught in the moment.
Fortunately for the both of them, it bolted away, and she collapsed as her knees buckled and her lungs let out a long, deep sigh of pure relief. With that unpleasantness finished, she dragged herself over to the tree, set her back against her new shelter, put her face into her palms, and began to sob.
A.N: lil thing i wrote for aab's CYOA, polished for marginally more quality. bit more experimental, trying to lean much, much more heavily on show instead of tell. don't think it worked out so well
In hindsight, perhaps choosing to be an enemy of the world was a poor decision.
In the dreamwalker's defence, it was hardly the worst decision she'd made along the way.
-
The first thing the girl did upon arriving in the world was to stagger backwards from a cliff, almost falling on her ass but catching herself with preternatural grace, despite the heavy weight of her backpack. The second thing she did was lie flat on her belly and slowly crawl forwards through the mud until her eyes peeked out over the edge. The third thing she did was stare like an idiot at the sight before her.
The drop was sharp, a wedge cut into the world as though by chisel or blade. The side was covered in striations and layers, beginning with the brown of loam and then mars-red rock, but mid way through transitioned into a deep, foreign maroon until it reached the frothing white rapids at the bottom. The cliffside was largely unmarred, but here and there, she could pick out craggy branches anchored to the walls, stubbornly clinging to life.
Slowly being overcome with vertigo, she scuttled backwards and slowly picked herself up off the ground before turning around in an attempt to orient herself, only to be greeted with the densest forest she'd ever seen in her life. There were towering trees of myriad shapes and colours, forming a rainbow canopy that filtered the hot tropical sun into dim pillars of light here and there in the rare spot the branches didn't overlap. The undergrowth flourished despite the relative darkness, forming a seemingly impassable wall of plant matter at waist height.
With the tremendous physical enhancements she'd been granted, she could no doubt plough through the foliage or make use of the explosive force of her blood to clear a path that would risk drawing the attention of predators the mage wasn't sure she was ready to face. More importantly, she just didn't want to, not when better options were available.
"Please just work," she said to herself before stretching her hand to the nearest tree, pressing her thumb against middle and ring fingers and lowering her arm slowly, making prayers under her breath. And as though mirroring her, that tree sent down a branch to her side, bending by some invisible weight. She knew by instinct she could affix it there and begin twisting it into her desired shape. Instead, she simply sat upon the branch and allowed it to lift her high into the canopy, as if taken up by a kindly ent.
It began as a giggle, a yipping noise from deep in her throat before escalating into a bark, then a cackle of hyena laughter. She tried to suppress it as best she could but failed entirely in the face of her euphoria. Magic! Real magic. Not sleight of hand, nor the intangible power of occult ritual, nor the "miracle of modern technology." No, this was real sorcery, originating solely from her will and with real, obvious, impossible effect. She almost fell off her perch as she kicked her legs in the air while her mind looped the memory and each iteration only made the smile on her face grow warmer.
A soft whump was followed by a crushing impact striking her back. She was knocked clear off the tree and sent hurtling to the ground. She heard a snarl and the tearing of cloth as some creature tried to claw her and seize her neck, getting a mouthful of tough fabric instead. The pack saved her from having her throat torn out, but it couldn't keep her from the landing.
It felt like she was hit by a truck. Her joints creaked in their frame, and she let out a choked scream as her brain rattled around her skull. With adrenaline and desperation, she somehow managed to scramble onto all fours, and suddenly the weight of her attacker left her back. She wheeled around and pushed herself back with her hands and legs digging in the dirt, trying to create some distance.
The creature she saw would've been beautiful in any other circumstance. It had the sleek profile of a big cat, long of limb and fang with speckled green fur and slitted pupils. As it was, she only started moving faster, trying to get up and run. But it was already too late; the monster was already lowering itself for a pounce.
By some instinct in her, not from reason or reflex but somewhere more fundamental still, she raised her hand and reached out with her spirit to feel her enemy. There was a moment of quiet, and just as it was about to leap, she clenched her fist.
The cat locked up as though she'd reached into its chest and grasped its heart to still the beating. It fell over stiffly and yet was silent, throat locked in place though its eyes were wildly darting about and filthy yellow foam filled its mouth. The blood mage could see inside it, caught every errant twitch of its body as muscle and sinew struggled desperately against blood. What had once been a ferocious predator was only a panicking, helpless beast held captive to her will.
She felt a bile rise in the back of her mouth but couldn't stop herself staring at what she was doing. It was only when a strangled whimper escaped its throat that she regained the presence of mind to render it mercifully unconscious.
It was over. For now, at least. For better or worse, this was the girls' new life. Rather than deal with what had just happened, she stood up and began shaping the tree. Where once it was hesitant, now it happened swiftly and steadily, branches twisting and turning hither and yon. Knots built on knots gradually, and the tree mage felt an intangible bloom of magic brush against her spirit, like the gentle caress of leaves rustling in an invisible breeze.
The end result was a tree hunched over, once high branches now touching the ground and wrapping around each other in an arboreal embrace. Appropriately enough, it looked almost surreptitious to the girl's eye, a pickpocket ducking his head in a crowd to avoid attention. It would deflect attention from all manner of living things. Not perfectly, but well enough to hide her from anything that might plausibly stumble upon this area.
Next, she turned her attention to the collapsed body of her enemy. Digging through her pack for the sharp spike burin, she stomped to the thing, knelt by its side and raised her tool high up. And then kept it there. And then paused, looking at the handful of scars that littered its body, faint patches where fur was thin or faded. And then slowly lowered her weapon before simply making a nick in the animal's side away, drawing out a few drops of blood that she absorbed into her skin.
"Better be grateful, you little bastard," she muttered to herself, "When I wake you up, I wanna see your dumb ass run to the hills, see what happens if you don't."
She then got up and backed away from it, continuing with mumbled threats of violence and dire retribution if it had the guts to keep fighting. Despite her words, she roused it anyway, reaching out with her magic, this time not to seize but to invigorate. As soon as she finished, it leapt to all fours with a sudden jolt of surprised alacrity before staring at her, eyes wide and posture tense, as though ready to jump again. They tensed, caught in the moment.
Fortunately for the both of them, it bolted away, and she collapsed as her knees buckled and her lungs let out a long, deep sigh of pure relief. With that unpleasantness finished, she dragged herself over to the tree, set her back against her new shelter, put her face into her palms, and began to sob.
A.N: lil thing i wrote for aab's CYOA, polished for marginally more quality. bit more experimental, trying to lean much, much more heavily on show instead of tell. don't think it worked out so well
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
There are far more Specters than Eidolons, and for every Specter, there are many high-level wraiths. Even if a member of the Inner Circle can contend against one of the four Great Specter Kings, they would not be able to fight off their entire army. (Or fight off the Specter King himself when he is forced to consume his army.)
Indeed, it's almost like the Ferryman has some ulterior motives...
It has a limited battery but recharges on its own - I probably should've added that.
There are three modes, but writing it as, "lethal and more lethal," was funnier.
These wounds cannot be healed with Spirit Doctor. As for Celestine Form's beauty, it'd simply render them into prettifying battle scars.
You can take both, the Ferryman simply doesn't expect you to be that insane.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
An Education in Red
"Hey, kiddo, I couldn't help overhearing what you told Chanteur. Want me to help you learn how to scam people? Hm?"
"I don't know. Mama says I shouldn't be alone with you, that you might cor-rupt me, whatever that means."
---
"Hello!"
Had Enoch been a lesser man - a low-minded mortal - he would've likely flinched at the sudden greeting. As it were, his striated mind processed the word: thoroughly analyzed its cadence, direction, tone, age, and other factors within the timespan it took most people's eyelids to complete a hundredth of an eyeblink.
Instead of flinching in surprise, or reacting with the predictable outrage, Atrianome Enoch graced the man with a favorable smile. An enemy or not, it wouldn't do well to be the one to initiate outright hostilities with an unknown entity.
In front of his plain office desk stood an odd magician indeed - a grown man in a suit of finely-crafted unornamented articulated plate, wrapped in a richly-carmine capelet made from waxed cotton and laced with golden filigree displaying heroic legends which threaded into arcane symbols on the micrometer scale; such an insane profusion of detail concealed almost incomprehensible toughness in the fibers of the cloth, every core monomer hiding wonderfully contrived space-time distortions which threaded together the mass of tectonic plates within their meager, insubstantial volume.
It would have taken a system or person capable of rupturing planets into even halves to even have a chance of ripping that cloth.
The armor it shrouded was greater still, its every plate an aegisian defense that'd repel the might of a hundred thousand Lance spells as easily as human epidermis protected the flesh underneath from a gentle breeze.
It would be folly to even attempt to fight this man - his offensive measures were concealed under dense abjurations and otherworldly spellcraft of concealment, rendering them far beyond Enoch's ability to Examine. Already understanding the sheer magnitude of what he was dealing with, Enoch's mind raced to comprehend how much of this man's actions - covert and overt - were mere coincidences of his casual methodology, and how much of it was intended; purposeful intimidation? Or simple chance?
"Hello there, sir! Welcome to the Terrascape Academy of Magical Endeavor! May I ask, pray tell, who you are and how you suddenly manifested in my office?"
"I am Blaze Gonnemann, interdimensional mercenary, sorcerer supreme, gunman-for-hire, and monster hunter," said the man. He reached out and handed Enoch a business card. It, too, was more durable than a mountain, and on its reverse side was a summoning ritual, apparently to call the man. "I'd hate to waste your time - world conquest, and all, I sympathize - I simply didn't mean to offend by sending a letter and decided an arrival in person would be far more polite. Anyhow, my family had the fortune of celebrating my niece's seventeenth birthday recently, and we're looking for higher education. After some pondering, we decided your Academy of Magical Endeavor would make for a... fitting alma mater. All humans between ages of seventeen and twenty are encouraged to apply, I understand?"
Almost like an approaching train that he had to dodge, Enoch could feel some of his plans unraveling in the face of this... this immortal beast clad in plate armor that stood in front of him. No matter what happened, he couldn't allow an external influence that he couldn't control into his academy. "Ah, yes, but-"
"No," said Blaze suddenly, raising a hand, and chuckling, "No, do not fear, tuition won't be a problem. I have the first down payment here for you, actually."
The self-proclaimed mercenary clicked his fingers, and there was a distortion - an unexpected hiccup of space - and in the corner of Enoch's office appeared a treasure. It was a pile of gold and silver coins, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pearl necklaces, chests of treasure, various types of precious minerals, modern firearms, the secrets of world governments on super-hardware laptops, souls of demons locked within arcane orbs, drugs, bound spirit-slaves, incense, myrrh, gold ingots, cocaine bricks, magical artifacts, powdered death parasol mushrooms, herbs, spices, salt, pepper, nutritional supplements, bottles of bubbling-green insecticide, and carved wooden totems.
His Spiral-conferred hyper-mental processing and inhuman control of his own body failed, like a pot being clumsily tipped over and splattering into a hundred awkward shards upon the immaculate marble floor. Atrianome Enoch stared uncomprehendingly at the sight, stuttering like a broken machine.
"I- uh, I- I- uhm, I-"
Behind him stood the man, looming almost like a tower of shadows - Blaze Gonnemann - who then laid down a firm hand on Enoch's shoulder. A reassuring hand, in a way, but also one that firmly and subtly insisted that he should go along with this. And before Enoch could process the gesture any further, he spoke in a chipper voice.
"I trust we have an agreement, then. Good? Good. Good? Great. I'll be in touch about travel accomodations, sir." He clapped Enoch's back firmly but politely a few times, and then disappeared with a whoosh of displaced air, in a flash of crimson light.
"I..."
As brief as it may have been, the unnatural meeting left Enoch feeling kind of internally numb, like a pumpkin that had been carved out of its pulp, leaving it blank and empty within, maintaining structural integrity only by the sheer sturdiness of its shell. He couldn't do much but consider what he saw, thinking and mulling over the events of that accursed half-minute with the rumination of a sagacious thinker, contemplating what he should do in such a crookedly unfair and unexpected situation. It had, for the most part, derailed some of his plans - introducing a new, mighty piece on his chess board: a queen that potentially couldn't be toppled by any side of the game.
How could he keep playing in the face of such an unfair advantage? He decided there was nothing else he could do but try - and certainly nothing less.
And yet, looking up at the pile of treasures this Blaze Gonnemann had left behind - some of them magical - and remembering his sheer power... Maybe it'd even turn out for the better? If he could impress the man with his inventiveness, and favour his niece, ensure her proper advancement into the highest social strata...
Yes... This could work out, still. He could turn around a potentially deadly catastrophe into a magnificent success, elevating himself into the role of favored ally for what appeared to be an interdimensional entity of unsurpassed might. He wanted to chuckle at his own brief moment of despondency, at his near-despair.
All would, in the end, work out in his favor - in the favor of Atrianome Enoch.
He took a single, final look at the pile of treasure, however, and withered slightly at its contents.
Enoch clasped a troubled hand around his own head, and then asked himself:
"What in the Dimensional Supervoid am I going to do with eighty-five metric tonnes of crack cocaine?"
---
A Chronicles of Blaze Short.
Next time, we'll see Paulette get introduced to her classmates!
Also, because the wordcount didn't satisfy me, here's a few custom Charms for 2e. Because I'm an Infernal fan, first and foremost, they're mostly Infernal Charms, particularly ones for the Ebon Dragon.
And here's my personal favorite:
Cream Confiscation Approach
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 2, Larceny 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: none
No self-respecting Sidereal would actually add cream to their tea. This Charm allows a Sidereal to steal the cream from their fellow Sidereal's teacup with five automatic successes. It's for their own good.
Anyway, wordcount: 2.1k
"Hey, kiddo, I couldn't help overhearing what you told Chanteur. Want me to help you learn how to scam people? Hm?"
"I don't know. Mama says I shouldn't be alone with you, that you might cor-rupt me, whatever that means."
---
"Hello!"
Had Enoch been a lesser man - a low-minded mortal - he would've likely flinched at the sudden greeting. As it were, his striated mind processed the word: thoroughly analyzed its cadence, direction, tone, age, and other factors within the timespan it took most people's eyelids to complete a hundredth of an eyeblink.
Instead of flinching in surprise, or reacting with the predictable outrage, Atrianome Enoch graced the man with a favorable smile. An enemy or not, it wouldn't do well to be the one to initiate outright hostilities with an unknown entity.
In front of his plain office desk stood an odd magician indeed - a grown man in a suit of finely-crafted unornamented articulated plate, wrapped in a richly-carmine capelet made from waxed cotton and laced with golden filigree displaying heroic legends which threaded into arcane symbols on the micrometer scale; such an insane profusion of detail concealed almost incomprehensible toughness in the fibers of the cloth, every core monomer hiding wonderfully contrived space-time distortions which threaded together the mass of tectonic plates within their meager, insubstantial volume.
It would have taken a system or person capable of rupturing planets into even halves to even have a chance of ripping that cloth.
The armor it shrouded was greater still, its every plate an aegisian defense that'd repel the might of a hundred thousand Lance spells as easily as human epidermis protected the flesh underneath from a gentle breeze.
It would be folly to even attempt to fight this man - his offensive measures were concealed under dense abjurations and otherworldly spellcraft of concealment, rendering them far beyond Enoch's ability to Examine. Already understanding the sheer magnitude of what he was dealing with, Enoch's mind raced to comprehend how much of this man's actions - covert and overt - were mere coincidences of his casual methodology, and how much of it was intended; purposeful intimidation? Or simple chance?
"Hello there, sir! Welcome to the Terrascape Academy of Magical Endeavor! May I ask, pray tell, who you are and how you suddenly manifested in my office?"
"I am Blaze Gonnemann, interdimensional mercenary, sorcerer supreme, gunman-for-hire, and monster hunter," said the man. He reached out and handed Enoch a business card. It, too, was more durable than a mountain, and on its reverse side was a summoning ritual, apparently to call the man. "I'd hate to waste your time - world conquest, and all, I sympathize - I simply didn't mean to offend by sending a letter and decided an arrival in person would be far more polite. Anyhow, my family had the fortune of celebrating my niece's seventeenth birthday recently, and we're looking for higher education. After some pondering, we decided your Academy of Magical Endeavor would make for a... fitting alma mater. All humans between ages of seventeen and twenty are encouraged to apply, I understand?"
Almost like an approaching train that he had to dodge, Enoch could feel some of his plans unraveling in the face of this... this immortal beast clad in plate armor that stood in front of him. No matter what happened, he couldn't allow an external influence that he couldn't control into his academy. "Ah, yes, but-"
"No," said Blaze suddenly, raising a hand, and chuckling, "No, do not fear, tuition won't be a problem. I have the first down payment here for you, actually."
The self-proclaimed mercenary clicked his fingers, and there was a distortion - an unexpected hiccup of space - and in the corner of Enoch's office appeared a treasure. It was a pile of gold and silver coins, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, pearl necklaces, chests of treasure, various types of precious minerals, modern firearms, the secrets of world governments on super-hardware laptops, souls of demons locked within arcane orbs, drugs, bound spirit-slaves, incense, myrrh, gold ingots, cocaine bricks, magical artifacts, powdered death parasol mushrooms, herbs, spices, salt, pepper, nutritional supplements, bottles of bubbling-green insecticide, and carved wooden totems.
His Spiral-conferred hyper-mental processing and inhuman control of his own body failed, like a pot being clumsily tipped over and splattering into a hundred awkward shards upon the immaculate marble floor. Atrianome Enoch stared uncomprehendingly at the sight, stuttering like a broken machine.
"I- uh, I- I- uhm, I-"
Behind him stood the man, looming almost like a tower of shadows - Blaze Gonnemann - who then laid down a firm hand on Enoch's shoulder. A reassuring hand, in a way, but also one that firmly and subtly insisted that he should go along with this. And before Enoch could process the gesture any further, he spoke in a chipper voice.
"I trust we have an agreement, then. Good? Good. Good? Great. I'll be in touch about travel accomodations, sir." He clapped Enoch's back firmly but politely a few times, and then disappeared with a whoosh of displaced air, in a flash of crimson light.
"I..."
As brief as it may have been, the unnatural meeting left Enoch feeling kind of internally numb, like a pumpkin that had been carved out of its pulp, leaving it blank and empty within, maintaining structural integrity only by the sheer sturdiness of its shell. He couldn't do much but consider what he saw, thinking and mulling over the events of that accursed half-minute with the rumination of a sagacious thinker, contemplating what he should do in such a crookedly unfair and unexpected situation. It had, for the most part, derailed some of his plans - introducing a new, mighty piece on his chess board: a queen that potentially couldn't be toppled by any side of the game.
How could he keep playing in the face of such an unfair advantage? He decided there was nothing else he could do but try - and certainly nothing less.
And yet, looking up at the pile of treasures this Blaze Gonnemann had left behind - some of them magical - and remembering his sheer power... Maybe it'd even turn out for the better? If he could impress the man with his inventiveness, and favour his niece, ensure her proper advancement into the highest social strata...
Yes... This could work out, still. He could turn around a potentially deadly catastrophe into a magnificent success, elevating himself into the role of favored ally for what appeared to be an interdimensional entity of unsurpassed might. He wanted to chuckle at his own brief moment of despondency, at his near-despair.
All would, in the end, work out in his favor - in the favor of Atrianome Enoch.
He took a single, final look at the pile of treasure, however, and withered slightly at its contents.
Enoch clasped a troubled hand around his own head, and then asked himself:
"What in the Dimensional Supervoid am I going to do with eighty-five metric tonnes of crack cocaine?"
---
A Chronicles of Blaze Short.
Next time, we'll see Paulette get introduced to her classmates!
Also, because the wordcount didn't satisfy me, here's a few custom Charms for 2e. Because I'm an Infernal fan, first and foremost, they're mostly Infernal Charms, particularly ones for the Ebon Dragon.
- Inflammation of Draconic Passions
- Warping Shade Translocation
- Cakes and Lies Understanding
And here's my personal favorite:
Cream Confiscation Approach
Cost: 2m; Mins: Essence 2, Larceny 3
Type: Simple
Keywords: Combo-OK
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: none
No self-respecting Sidereal would actually add cream to their tea. This Charm allows a Sidereal to steal the cream from their fellow Sidereal's teacup with five automatic successes. It's for their own good.
Anyway, wordcount: 2.1k
Last edited:
Why his school?
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
It's funny to watch shit that you disapprove of burn down.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Ah, so the Inner Circle technically have the edge on elites, but they can still get dogpiled by mobs of peer-relevant-in-groups mooks. Or the Specter King could inhale his own army Coldbriar-style in a pinch, and then they're fucked. That makes sense now.
If you take the greater Geas, then the original-flavor version feels almost like a freebie though? You just need to target your Wraith/Specter hunting obligations at the forces of whatever Specter King you've sworn to bring down, and you're covering both responsibilities at once. Or am I missing something?
Party hearty, my dude.
[UP] Celestine Form (Domain: Artificery) [2 Drachmas]
[UP] Advice From The Ancestor [1 Obol]
[UP] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[UP] Craftsman's Constellation [1 Drachma]
[UP] Spirit Doctor [1 Drachma]
[UP] Winged Sandals [3 Obols]
[UP] Sowilo [5 Obols]
[UP] The Aegis [2 Drachmas]
[UP] Staff of Echoes [1 Denar]
[UP] Specter-Hunter Geas [+2 Drachmas]
[UP] A Ghost's Wound x2 [+2 Drachma]
For the Wounds, I'm thinking I'd go with one wound from death by giant spiders and one from death by fugu poisoning. The rationale is that spiders already freak me out so nothing new there (and some sexy battle scars from fangs or whatever are dope), and I already dislike seafood so being paranoid that eating it will kill me is also not much of a sacrifice. Fugu poisoning also doesn't really leave physical marks AFAIK, so there's that. If that's non-kosher for some reason because of that, then I'd go with death by giant crabs as my second wound for the same rationales.
As aforementioned, I'd use the extra Drachma to take the Aegis. And then I'd use my first Constellation crafting session to make something that would enable the Aegis to float and operate itself independently, automatically interposing itself between you and threats with preternatural speed, 360-degree awareness, and the skill of a born warrior like Achilles. The big issue with a shield is that you have to get it between you and the threat for it to be effective, and this would basically solve that as far as it's possible for that to be solved. Even better, it means you don't need to devote any of your own attention to it. So with that, the Winged Sandals, and the Staff of Echoes, you have an extremely viable basic combat strategy of keeping the range open and using your excellent mobility, firepower, and defense to dominate in ranged combat.
If that would take 100% of my Constellation Juice for the first yearly event, then so be it. Otherwise, I'd also craft a hammer created to make crafting (especially of magical artifacts) more powerful and efficient. Synergy! If I couldn't do that the first year, I'd just do it the second, circumstances permitting. And then as I progressed sufficiently in my attunement I'd periodically make replacements, of course. Long-term, personal crafting goals would be to craft powerful magical armor, making one piece at a time each year and designing each piece to not just be powerful in its own right but to function synergistically as part of a whole system.
That probably wouldn't be something you'd want to start on right away, though. First you'd want to attune to your Domain, and probably run off a few practice pieces while you're doing so, which you can use yourself and/or sell to get the materials to make even better replacements. And of course, you'd want your armor to be able to shapeshift into an innocuous and convenient form when you don't need it deployed.
Basically, long-term you turn yourself into magical undead Iron Man and proceed to live Tony Stark's best unlife as a heroic genius billionaire philanthropist playboy of the underworld. Power AND comfiness, don't say it can't be done.
[ ] The Forebear's Blade - Inheritance
Sounds like a great thematic ending for Hunger, but I do not want him to become like the Tyrant in his prologue. I do not see Hunger's people surviving this build; and this leaves the companions to the wayside so I am not picking this option.
On the other hand, the Haeliel ending intrigues me; Haeliel is liken to a goddess/patron of heroes, the only relationship a hero can have with a tyrant is an adversary one. So having Haeliel appear in this build instead of the others does make sense but I feel like I am not going to like the consequence.
I was thinking that Haeliel had a reincarnation that was Hunger's wife and that would be the reason why she shows up this ending, now I am not too sure.
[ ] The Ring Crimson - Blood Halo
I really like Hunger's companions despite their lack of screentime. This build reads like it can synergize well with Hunger's shadows and his companions at the same time! That would be a great force multiplier but I am not sure Hunger's realm or people can survive the Maiden.
[X] The Tears of Winter, the Dog of War, the Evening Sky - Imperishable Night
I like making a path towards the future and turning a desicive strike into a siege cannot be a good time for the Maiden. And creating a land of plenty from the now utopic human sphere sounds great. Seems like the best chance of survival of noncombatants and other peoples.
Sounds like a great thematic ending for Hunger, but I do not want him to become like the Tyrant in his prologue. I do not see Hunger's people surviving this build; and this leaves the companions to the wayside so I am not picking this option.
On the other hand, the Haeliel ending intrigues me; Haeliel is liken to a goddess/patron of heroes, the only relationship a hero can have with a tyrant is an adversary one. So having Haeliel appear in this build instead of the others does make sense but I feel like I am not going to like the consequence.
I was thinking that Haeliel had a reincarnation that was Hunger's wife and that would be the reason why she shows up this ending, now I am not too sure.
[ ] The Ring Crimson - Blood Halo
I really like Hunger's companions despite their lack of screentime. This build reads like it can synergize well with Hunger's shadows and his companions at the same time! That would be a great force multiplier but I am not sure Hunger's realm or people can survive the Maiden.
[X] The Tears of Winter, the Dog of War, the Evening Sky - Imperishable Night
I like making a path towards the future and turning a desicive strike into a siege cannot be a good time for the Maiden. And creating a land of plenty from the now utopic human sphere sounds great. Seems like the best chance of survival of noncombatants and other peoples.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[UP] Celestine Form (Domain: Murder) [2 Drachmas]
[UP] Knight of Death [2 Obols]
[UP] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[UP] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[UP] Sign of the Skull [5 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[UP] Sign of the Accursed [1 Denar]
[UP] Red Gun [4 Drachmas]
[UP] A Ghost's Wound [+1 Drachma]
[UP] Specter-Hunter Geas [+2 Drachmas]
The thesis here is that you're John fucking Wick. You've got Celestine power and a domain that empowers you in all killing not conducted under official sanction, so pretty much any killing that isn't done as part of an army or a police force. You make money by doing violence up in the living world. You've got the Ferryman's Spell for getting in the vicinity of your targets. You've got the Sign of the Skull to once a day either kill or badly weaken an elite enemy. You've got the Red Gun to fuck shit up with the most terrifying implement of gun violence the underworld has to offer. You've got the fucking Noble Gun Praxis!
Between your Domain, the Red Gun, and the Noble Gun Praxis, I'd say you've got decent odds of pulling off something of a Hunger-lite build a la his relationship with the Forebear's Blade. Emphasis on "lite" of course, since you don't have Progression and your Praxis is two steps below the Imperial Sword Praxis that Hunger has access to. But it should be enough to make you the Baba Yaga of the underworld at least.
Speaking of, obviously, this build takes the Specter-Hunter Geas. Because you're the guy they send to kill the boogeyman. I would have taken the Greater version, but honestly neither of the other Denar options really felt like it fit with this build. As for the Wound, I'm going to go with "mauled to death by a cat" because you need some cool scars, and you're really more of a dog person anyway.
Oh, and the Sign of the Bear is also in the build. Because I had two Obols left to spend on something and getting the Well Rested perk from Fallout tickled me. And hey, with the right dreams you get some cool bonus powers out of it too. Considering you're literally John Wick, you're probably going to be dreaming about blood and darkness and violence and shit anyway, so you should get some nicely thematic and useful powers out of this.
[UP] Primordial Form (Magic) [1 Denar]
[UP] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[UP] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[UP] Apple of Discord [4 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[UP] Dog's Helm [3 Drachmas and 5 Obols]
[UP] A Ghost's Wound [+2 Obols]
The thesis here is that I talked shit about how dumb it is to take Primordial Form without a good plan to survive the consequences of taking it, so I figured I should try to justify it myself. The Primordial Form is for the Titanic Domain of Magic, because magic is cool and also offers a wide range of utility and concealment options in addition to raw power. Everything else in this build is chosen to make taking Primordial Form survivable long enough to unlock its full power, because once you have that you really don't need anything else that's on offer. So greed is not your friend here.
The Ferryman's Spell is in there for a quick getaway. The Ferryman might say there are limits to when he'll transport you, but if the alternative is you getting busted for a forbidden power that would get him hunted down too I'd bet he'd be willing to bend those rules. Of course, you'd need to be careful not to abuse such a consideration, or he might decide the best approach is just to arrange for your liquidation himself before your dumb ass can get both of you killed.
The Sign of the Bear is in here for one reason above any other: the part that says you become "far harder to notice for so long as you are sleeping in such a manner." The Dog's Helm is there for a very similar reason.
Lastly, the Apple of Discord is there as your last-ditch failsafe if it ever does come to a party of gods hunting you down, or alternately as your opening gambit when you topple the Pantheon after unlocking your full Titanic power. Just activate the Apple, teleport it into the middle of the gods, then watch them on Scry-o-Vision and laugh your ass off while your most powerful enemies all kill each other over a fucking apple.
The other side of this build is that what it DOESN'T take is just as important as what it does take. It avoids taking anything from the Necromancy category as well as avoids either of the Specter-Hunter Geases for a simple reason: it is important above all else to avoid drawing attention until you're ready for it, and you're not going to be fully ready for it for literally a millennium. So anything that could force you to openly deploy your Titanic power prematurely is to be avoided at all costs.
So pulling it all together, the game plan here is to, first of all, find yourself the most secure and inconspicuous hidey-hole you can. Normally that would mean finding or digging out a cave, but here that's a spectacularly bad idea. Unless it's okay to burrow into the Great Hill as long as you don't go below ground level, in which case just do that. Otherwise, find some abandoned estate or something out in the boonies or whatever. Either way, once you've got your bolthole you layer it in all the wards that the Titan of Magic is capable of laying down. Wards against divination and scrying? Check. Wards against even being noticed, or having anybody think this place is worth checking out? Check, you basically want to layer your sanctum in all the antimemetic wards you can muster pretty much. Wards against intrusion or infiltration? Check. Wards against direct attack, in the worst case scenario? Check.
Then, you put the Dog's Helm on, go to sleep, and stay asleep as much as possible for the next full-on millennium. You would want to make sure your wards are rigged to wake you up for two things. One, for anyone managing to make it past any of your wards, or otherwise directly threatening your sanctum or its secrecy. Two, for each time more of your Titanic power unlocks, so that you can redo all your wards to the new best standard you are capable of meeting. Because if you can make it to the full millennium without getting busted, you have very likely won the setting. So that is your sole real goal.
1025 words of build discussion.
[UP] Knight of Death [2 Obols]
[UP] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[UP] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[UP] Sign of the Skull [5 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[UP] Sign of the Accursed [1 Denar]
[UP] Red Gun [4 Drachmas]
[UP] A Ghost's Wound [+1 Drachma]
[UP] Specter-Hunter Geas [+2 Drachmas]
The thesis here is that you're John fucking Wick. You've got Celestine power and a domain that empowers you in all killing not conducted under official sanction, so pretty much any killing that isn't done as part of an army or a police force. You make money by doing violence up in the living world. You've got the Ferryman's Spell for getting in the vicinity of your targets. You've got the Sign of the Skull to once a day either kill or badly weaken an elite enemy. You've got the Red Gun to fuck shit up with the most terrifying implement of gun violence the underworld has to offer. You've got the fucking Noble Gun Praxis!
Between your Domain, the Red Gun, and the Noble Gun Praxis, I'd say you've got decent odds of pulling off something of a Hunger-lite build a la his relationship with the Forebear's Blade. Emphasis on "lite" of course, since you don't have Progression and your Praxis is two steps below the Imperial Sword Praxis that Hunger has access to. But it should be enough to make you the Baba Yaga of the underworld at least.
Speaking of, obviously, this build takes the Specter-Hunter Geas. Because you're the guy they send to kill the boogeyman. I would have taken the Greater version, but honestly neither of the other Denar options really felt like it fit with this build. As for the Wound, I'm going to go with "mauled to death by a cat" because you need some cool scars, and you're really more of a dog person anyway.
Oh, and the Sign of the Bear is also in the build. Because I had two Obols left to spend on something and getting the Well Rested perk from Fallout tickled me. And hey, with the right dreams you get some cool bonus powers out of it too. Considering you're literally John Wick, you're probably going to be dreaming about blood and darkness and violence and shit anyway, so you should get some nicely thematic and useful powers out of this.
[UP] Primordial Form (Magic) [1 Denar]
[UP] Ferryman's Spell [1 Obol]
[UP] Sign of the Bear [2 Obols]
[UP] Apple of Discord [4 Obols and 1 Drachma]
[UP] Dog's Helm [3 Drachmas and 5 Obols]
[UP] A Ghost's Wound [+2 Obols]
The thesis here is that I talked shit about how dumb it is to take Primordial Form without a good plan to survive the consequences of taking it, so I figured I should try to justify it myself. The Primordial Form is for the Titanic Domain of Magic, because magic is cool and also offers a wide range of utility and concealment options in addition to raw power. Everything else in this build is chosen to make taking Primordial Form survivable long enough to unlock its full power, because once you have that you really don't need anything else that's on offer. So greed is not your friend here.
The Ferryman's Spell is in there for a quick getaway. The Ferryman might say there are limits to when he'll transport you, but if the alternative is you getting busted for a forbidden power that would get him hunted down too I'd bet he'd be willing to bend those rules. Of course, you'd need to be careful not to abuse such a consideration, or he might decide the best approach is just to arrange for your liquidation himself before your dumb ass can get both of you killed.
The Sign of the Bear is in here for one reason above any other: the part that says you become "far harder to notice for so long as you are sleeping in such a manner." The Dog's Helm is there for a very similar reason.
Lastly, the Apple of Discord is there as your last-ditch failsafe if it ever does come to a party of gods hunting you down, or alternately as your opening gambit when you topple the Pantheon after unlocking your full Titanic power. Just activate the Apple, teleport it into the middle of the gods, then watch them on Scry-o-Vision and laugh your ass off while your most powerful enemies all kill each other over a fucking apple.
The other side of this build is that what it DOESN'T take is just as important as what it does take. It avoids taking anything from the Necromancy category as well as avoids either of the Specter-Hunter Geases for a simple reason: it is important above all else to avoid drawing attention until you're ready for it, and you're not going to be fully ready for it for literally a millennium. So anything that could force you to openly deploy your Titanic power prematurely is to be avoided at all costs.
So pulling it all together, the game plan here is to, first of all, find yourself the most secure and inconspicuous hidey-hole you can. Normally that would mean finding or digging out a cave, but here that's a spectacularly bad idea. Unless it's okay to burrow into the Great Hill as long as you don't go below ground level, in which case just do that. Otherwise, find some abandoned estate or something out in the boonies or whatever. Either way, once you've got your bolthole you layer it in all the wards that the Titan of Magic is capable of laying down. Wards against divination and scrying? Check. Wards against even being noticed, or having anybody think this place is worth checking out? Check, you basically want to layer your sanctum in all the antimemetic wards you can muster pretty much. Wards against intrusion or infiltration? Check. Wards against direct attack, in the worst case scenario? Check.
Then, you put the Dog's Helm on, go to sleep, and stay asleep as much as possible for the next full-on millennium. You would want to make sure your wards are rigged to wake you up for two things. One, for anyone managing to make it past any of your wards, or otherwise directly threatening your sanctum or its secrecy. Two, for each time more of your Titanic power unlocks, so that you can redo all your wards to the new best standard you are capable of meeting. Because if you can make it to the full millennium without getting busted, you have very likely won the setting. So that is your sole real goal.
1025 words of build discussion.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
I love this build - incredibly comfy. All you do is find a house and bunker down and sleep forever, and if someone finds you, let them face the wrath of a titans whose slumber was foolishly interrupted. I'd love a(n after)life like this.
Zampano
🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈
- Location
- Simping for DSB
This is an interesting point - voting for IN channels our Arete output into protecting the lives of civilians... but I'm not really sure what they are being protected against. Are you worried that the Maiden is just going to turbo-kill the entire Human Sphere in order to kill Hunger? That doesn't really seem like it fits with the Maiden's stated motivation of being upset at what we have turned the HS into. While Vengeance could mean that she'd rather destroy the galaxy rather than let it exist under Hunger's rule, my take is that the Maiden's first target will be Hunger himself. Both Inheritance and Blood Halo will force a confrontation before the Maiden can depopulate the galaxy, imo.
Note that the blurb devotes Arete to "directly improve outcomes for Hunger's populace, regardless of his victory or defeat." But improving outcomes it not necessarily a question of life and death. IN has such a huge impact on Quality of Life for the average citizen, it could be that the effect of Fanworks just goes to making sure that their reality-warping luxury lifestyle is maintained once Hunger is dead.
As fan-works begin to accumulate, it is worth thinking about what kind of epilogue you'd like to read about if Hunger wins and if Hunger loses. By that metric, I'm definitely sure that Blood Halo is the blurb that will give me the epilogue that I want to see most.
Fayhem
Definitely not an escaped SCP
- Location
- At large
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In the same spirit as the one I did for Gaige:
Krieg Goes to the Furthermost Reaches
Krieg looked around him in more than usual confusion. One moment he'd been laughing maniacally while sawing other psychos in half with his buzzaxe - [ah yes, Tuesdays] - and now all of a sudden he was in some weird… cave? Or something, it was big and dark and that counted as a cave.
And there was some stranger in an evil bathrobe or cloak or whatever there, too. Krieg raised his buzzaxe gleefully, ready to saw this new guy in half too.
[Wait! We agreed, we only kill bad people, remember? We don't know who this is, yet. Just… say hi. If you can.]
Fine. Krieg would try. "ME AND YOU ON A MEAT BICYCLE BUILT FOR TWO!"
[Oh, god.]
The stranger cocked their head quizzically for a moment. "No, thank you. I have more than adequate transportation already."
The stranger continued speaking, "Now, somehow or another, you've ended up here. My sympathies. This is a place of great opportunity, especially-"
This was so boring. Krieg tuned him out as the stranger - [the Curse Broker, apparently] - rambled on and on about magic and coins or whatever. Krieg only interjected when they started talking about shadow and darkness.
"NIGHT TIME IS SPINE TIME!"
The Curse Broker didn't appear to appreciate this feedback, as they just paused briefly before resuming their spiel like nothing happened.
Krieg wandered away. [You know, that was probably important. You could have stayed so that we could learn… oh, forget it, who am I kidding. Look, just go check out those displays. From what I heard I think we can buy some of these things.]
Krieg was uninterested in shopping.
[...If this place is as dangerous as the Curse Broker is saying, at least some of them have to be good for violence.]
Krieg was interested in violence. You could go so far as to call it his driving passion. Alright, maybe that stuff was worth checking out after all.
Naturally, Krieg gravitated first to a collection of bright colors, as was only reasonable. It looked like the colors had little plaques with writing underneath them. He waited patiently for the voice in his head to tell him what they were saying.
[Let's see, first up is just called "Violet." Oh, apparently it makes you stronger whenever you kill-]
Krieg had heard all he needed to. He slammed his hand onto the display without hesitation. "PURPLE LIKE THE GUTS I'LL CHOKE YOU WITH!"
The Curse Broker had either finished their spiel or given up, Krieg didn't know and didn't care, but either way they'd come over to the displays now. "An excellent choice. Certainly well-suited to your… personal strengths."
The voice in his head read more display plaques to Krieg. Boring, boring- wait, did the voice just say "red"?
"RED ONES GO BLOODIER!" Krieg was a simple man. He knew what he liked.
[You know, you could have at least let me read the description. We can only get one thing of that power level from what I heard, and we don't even know what it actually does because you're already walking away.]
Krieg didn't have to take this. "SHUT YOUR BRAIN MOUTH BEFORE I FILL IT WITH MY FISTS!"
[You do realize you just threatened to punch your own brain, right?]
"THIS HURTS ME MORE THAN IT HURTS OTHER ME!"
[...Fuck, that's true.]
Krieg was pleased to have won this battle of wits, and ignored how that thought made the voice in his head groan in seeming anguish. If it couldn't handle losing, it shouldn't have come at the king.
He wandered over to one of the other sections of exhibits now and waited for the voice to read to him again. The voice in his head made a production out of sighing heavily.
[Ugh, fuck my life. Alright, just three options here… alright, yeah, just take this one. Trust me, the others are no good for you. Well, one of them might have been good for both of us, but we can't afford it anymore so thanks for that.]
The voice could be so whiny, sometimes. Like a child, except it couldn't bleed. But Krieg could be the bigger murderer. Bigger man. Whatever. The point was, he was taking the option the voice asked him to, because he was gracious like that.
The Curse Broker piped up again at this point. "Ah, taking Resilient are you? A reasonable choice, the increases to durability and strength should serve you well for the price."
"MY BICEPS WILL SWALLOW YOUR FACE!"
The Curse Broker didn't seem to know what to say to that. Krieg wandered off again.
Let's see what these displays over here were all about. [Huh, apparently these are all something called Verses.]
What, like poetry? BORING. Krieg could already write all the poetry he would ever need.
"AXE HATE-SMASHES SKULLS
NEW MEAT BICYCLES SHINE BEST
BLOOD ALWAYS IS ME"
[...Was that actually a haiku? Have you actually been listening to Zero all this time?]
Krieg felt no need to dignify that with a response. He walked away from the obviously boring Verses. There were still a couple of exhibits they had yet to check out. He headed to the next one over.
[Okay, this one's all about Numbers- YOU FUCKER, IF YOU JUST WALK AWAY AGAIN I SWEAR I WILL SING THE SKARNEY THE SKAGOSAUR THEME SONG IN YOUR BRAIN UNTIL YOU GO CRAZIER.]
Reluctantly, Krieg turned back towards the displays. He knew the voice wasn't bluffing when it got like this. He'd just have to indulge it until it could be more reasonable again.
"MY BODY COUNTS YOUR TEETH!"
[Good, thank you. Alright, let's see… okay, this One's really cheap and it'll top up your health and energy and everything once a day.]
Krieg didn't move.
[...So you can keep killing instead of resting, or whatever. You know, you could really stand to develop some additional interests.]
Krieg wasn't going to engage with that obviously ridiculous criticism, but the voice did make a good point. He pointed at the display the voice had indicated.
"ONE MORE ONTO THE POOP TRAIN!"
"Ah, yes. As… as you say." The Curse Broker was giving off the unmistakable air of a person who is questioning every choice they made in life that brought them here. After you had seen it fifty times or so, you really couldn't mistake it for anything else.
That wasn't a Krieg problem though, because you couldn't kill it messily with your violence. The Curse Broker would just have to figure it out themself.
[Alright, these three are obviously not going to be for you… oh, you'll like this one though. It just flat-out makes you ten times as tough, fast, and strong.]
The voice wasn't wrong, this time. Krieg did like that. He laughed happily to himself, causing the Curse Broker to flinch.
"MY PECS HAVE PECS!"
Krieg was heading over to the last exhibit, the one that seemed to have actual physical objects in it, when the Curse Broker cleared their throat.
"Ah, I'm afraid you seem to be running short on funds now. If you want to peruse those displays, I'd recommend reviewing my eponymous wares first."
What.
"...Curses. I'm talking about curses. Because I'm the Curse Broker? Look, if you take some Curses, I'll give you more currency for my store, simple as that. No more than two, and no more than one from each category."
[Eh, could be worth taking a look at. If they all suck we can just walk away.]
Fair enough. Krieg walked over to the display of curses the Curse Broker had indicated. Had that display actually been there before? Didn't matter, it was there now.
[Hmm, let's see. This one just "makes you resistant to social authority," so it basically just gives you your default personality as a Curse. Which seems fitting.]
Krieg rolled his eye at the voice's insolence.
[Eh, those three would all just be too much of a pain… okay, this one just makes you fight every monster and baddo in the entire place, which you're going to want to do anyway. So basically another freebie.]
The voice's logic seemed sound. Krieg selected the two the voice had recommended, and headed back over to the loot displays. Off to the side, the Curse Broker snapped their fingers as if they'd suddenly remembered something, then apparently cast some kind of spell on themselves. Whatever.
[Let's see… these glasses sound like they'd be hilarious but not particularly useful on you. Manacles, just no. Oh, this "gonne" sounds strong… but it sounds like it'd wind up adding another voice in your head. It gets too crowded in here anyway.]
The voice was right. Krieg sometimes wished he could just have some time alone with his thoughts.
[I'm not even going to touch that one. Ooh, this armor sounds great. It protects against basically everything, and even if you don't wear the helmet you still get half-protection for your head.]
Krieg took the helmet off the suit of plate armor and put it on.
"MY SKULLBOX BREAKS YOUR RIBCAGE!"
The Curse Broker replied, "Well, yes, technically wearing just the helmet would provide half-protection to your body. But why would you-"
"MY BLOOD IS IN YOUR BLOOD!"
The Curse Broker asked some really ridiculous questions sometimes. Krieg enjoyed bleeding too much to just give it up completely like that. And as long as it wasn't a headshot, he could probably just walk and/or murder it off anyway.
[Wait, did he just actually understand you? Huh, I guess that must have been what that spell he cast on himself did. Some kind of psycho-to-sanity translator. Man, if only everyone had one of those.]
Krieg didn't see why that would be necessary when people should just be learning to speak sensibly instead.
[Ugh. Anyway, it'll take the rest of our money, but this sword sounds perfect for you. You should definitely take it.]
"SHARPSTICK CAN'T MAKE BONEBUZZ SONGS FOR THE GARBAGE PEOPLE!"
Krieg was a psycho. Murder just wouldn't be the same without a buzzaxe. The voice just didn't really seem to get it, sometimes.
The Curse Broker cleared their throat. "Ah, if I may interject - while I normally wouldn't offer this, if it will… expedite your purchasing process, I can simply meld the Sword with your existing, ah, 'buzzaxe.'"
[Heh, I think they want to just kick us out already. Still, if they're gonna give both of us what we want, just take them up on it.]
Krieg nodded enthusiastically. A buzzaxe upgrade was always a wise investment.
The Curse Broker took the sword from the display and gestured for Krieg to hand over his buzzaxe, which he reluctantly did. They then murmured something that sounded like "forgive me," and pressed the two together. With a flash of bright light, the sword was subsumed into the form of the buzzaxe.
Looking weirdly like they wanted to cry for some reason, the Curse Broker handed Krieg's extra-shiny upgraded buzzaxe back to him. Krieg revved it experimentally.
Its buzz sounded like the wailing of a chorus of tormented souls now. Like people being viciously butchered over and over and over. Like the cry of final despair from somebody who knew their violent demise was only a fraction of a second away.
It was wonderful. Krieg had never heard something that made him feel so much at home. This purchase was already worth it, and he hadn't even murdered anyone with it yet!
The Curse Broker sighed in relief. "It's over. It's finally over. Now get the hell out of my store, and never speak to me or my Curses ever again."
With a wave of their hand, Krieg was transported into a moonlit clearing in the woods. On the other side of the clearing, a horde of what were unmistakably some kind of zombies were pursuing a small band of bleeding, terrified humans.
Krieg shouted in delight and charged headlong at the zombies, his wonderful enhanced buzzaxe screaming in anticipation. As he did so, the voice muttered, seemingly to itself.
[...Did that fucker just meme at us?]
2024 words in the fanwork.
Krieg Goes to the Furthermost Reaches
Krieg looked around him in more than usual confusion. One moment he'd been laughing maniacally while sawing other psychos in half with his buzzaxe - [ah yes, Tuesdays] - and now all of a sudden he was in some weird… cave? Or something, it was big and dark and that counted as a cave.
And there was some stranger in an evil bathrobe or cloak or whatever there, too. Krieg raised his buzzaxe gleefully, ready to saw this new guy in half too.
[Wait! We agreed, we only kill bad people, remember? We don't know who this is, yet. Just… say hi. If you can.]
Fine. Krieg would try. "ME AND YOU ON A MEAT BICYCLE BUILT FOR TWO!"
[Oh, god.]
The stranger cocked their head quizzically for a moment. "No, thank you. I have more than adequate transportation already."
The stranger continued speaking, "Now, somehow or another, you've ended up here. My sympathies. This is a place of great opportunity, especially-"
This was so boring. Krieg tuned him out as the stranger - [the Curse Broker, apparently] - rambled on and on about magic and coins or whatever. Krieg only interjected when they started talking about shadow and darkness.
"NIGHT TIME IS SPINE TIME!"
The Curse Broker didn't appear to appreciate this feedback, as they just paused briefly before resuming their spiel like nothing happened.
Krieg wandered away. [You know, that was probably important. You could have stayed so that we could learn… oh, forget it, who am I kidding. Look, just go check out those displays. From what I heard I think we can buy some of these things.]
Krieg was uninterested in shopping.
[...If this place is as dangerous as the Curse Broker is saying, at least some of them have to be good for violence.]
Krieg was interested in violence. You could go so far as to call it his driving passion. Alright, maybe that stuff was worth checking out after all.
Naturally, Krieg gravitated first to a collection of bright colors, as was only reasonable. It looked like the colors had little plaques with writing underneath them. He waited patiently for the voice in his head to tell him what they were saying.
[Let's see, first up is just called "Violet." Oh, apparently it makes you stronger whenever you kill-]
Krieg had heard all he needed to. He slammed his hand onto the display without hesitation. "PURPLE LIKE THE GUTS I'LL CHOKE YOU WITH!"
The Curse Broker had either finished their spiel or given up, Krieg didn't know and didn't care, but either way they'd come over to the displays now. "An excellent choice. Certainly well-suited to your… personal strengths."
The voice in his head read more display plaques to Krieg. Boring, boring- wait, did the voice just say "red"?
"RED ONES GO BLOODIER!" Krieg was a simple man. He knew what he liked.
[You know, you could have at least let me read the description. We can only get one thing of that power level from what I heard, and we don't even know what it actually does because you're already walking away.]
Krieg didn't have to take this. "SHUT YOUR BRAIN MOUTH BEFORE I FILL IT WITH MY FISTS!"
[You do realize you just threatened to punch your own brain, right?]
"THIS HURTS ME MORE THAN IT HURTS OTHER ME!"
[...Fuck, that's true.]
Krieg was pleased to have won this battle of wits, and ignored how that thought made the voice in his head groan in seeming anguish. If it couldn't handle losing, it shouldn't have come at the king.
He wandered over to one of the other sections of exhibits now and waited for the voice to read to him again. The voice in his head made a production out of sighing heavily.
[Ugh, fuck my life. Alright, just three options here… alright, yeah, just take this one. Trust me, the others are no good for you. Well, one of them might have been good for both of us, but we can't afford it anymore so thanks for that.]
The voice could be so whiny, sometimes. Like a child, except it couldn't bleed. But Krieg could be the bigger murderer. Bigger man. Whatever. The point was, he was taking the option the voice asked him to, because he was gracious like that.
The Curse Broker piped up again at this point. "Ah, taking Resilient are you? A reasonable choice, the increases to durability and strength should serve you well for the price."
"MY BICEPS WILL SWALLOW YOUR FACE!"
The Curse Broker didn't seem to know what to say to that. Krieg wandered off again.
Let's see what these displays over here were all about. [Huh, apparently these are all something called Verses.]
What, like poetry? BORING. Krieg could already write all the poetry he would ever need.
"AXE HATE-SMASHES SKULLS
NEW MEAT BICYCLES SHINE BEST
BLOOD ALWAYS IS ME"
[...Was that actually a haiku? Have you actually been listening to Zero all this time?]
Krieg felt no need to dignify that with a response. He walked away from the obviously boring Verses. There were still a couple of exhibits they had yet to check out. He headed to the next one over.
[Okay, this one's all about Numbers- YOU FUCKER, IF YOU JUST WALK AWAY AGAIN I SWEAR I WILL SING THE SKARNEY THE SKAGOSAUR THEME SONG IN YOUR BRAIN UNTIL YOU GO CRAZIER.]
Reluctantly, Krieg turned back towards the displays. He knew the voice wasn't bluffing when it got like this. He'd just have to indulge it until it could be more reasonable again.
"MY BODY COUNTS YOUR TEETH!"
[Good, thank you. Alright, let's see… okay, this One's really cheap and it'll top up your health and energy and everything once a day.]
Krieg didn't move.
[...So you can keep killing instead of resting, or whatever. You know, you could really stand to develop some additional interests.]
Krieg wasn't going to engage with that obviously ridiculous criticism, but the voice did make a good point. He pointed at the display the voice had indicated.
"ONE MORE ONTO THE POOP TRAIN!"
"Ah, yes. As… as you say." The Curse Broker was giving off the unmistakable air of a person who is questioning every choice they made in life that brought them here. After you had seen it fifty times or so, you really couldn't mistake it for anything else.
That wasn't a Krieg problem though, because you couldn't kill it messily with your violence. The Curse Broker would just have to figure it out themself.
[Alright, these three are obviously not going to be for you… oh, you'll like this one though. It just flat-out makes you ten times as tough, fast, and strong.]
The voice wasn't wrong, this time. Krieg did like that. He laughed happily to himself, causing the Curse Broker to flinch.
"MY PECS HAVE PECS!"
Krieg was heading over to the last exhibit, the one that seemed to have actual physical objects in it, when the Curse Broker cleared their throat.
"Ah, I'm afraid you seem to be running short on funds now. If you want to peruse those displays, I'd recommend reviewing my eponymous wares first."
What.
"...Curses. I'm talking about curses. Because I'm the Curse Broker? Look, if you take some Curses, I'll give you more currency for my store, simple as that. No more than two, and no more than one from each category."
[Eh, could be worth taking a look at. If they all suck we can just walk away.]
Fair enough. Krieg walked over to the display of curses the Curse Broker had indicated. Had that display actually been there before? Didn't matter, it was there now.
[Hmm, let's see. This one just "makes you resistant to social authority," so it basically just gives you your default personality as a Curse. Which seems fitting.]
Krieg rolled his eye at the voice's insolence.
[Eh, those three would all just be too much of a pain… okay, this one just makes you fight every monster and baddo in the entire place, which you're going to want to do anyway. So basically another freebie.]
The voice's logic seemed sound. Krieg selected the two the voice had recommended, and headed back over to the loot displays. Off to the side, the Curse Broker snapped their fingers as if they'd suddenly remembered something, then apparently cast some kind of spell on themselves. Whatever.
[Let's see… these glasses sound like they'd be hilarious but not particularly useful on you. Manacles, just no. Oh, this "gonne" sounds strong… but it sounds like it'd wind up adding another voice in your head. It gets too crowded in here anyway.]
The voice was right. Krieg sometimes wished he could just have some time alone with his thoughts.
[I'm not even going to touch that one. Ooh, this armor sounds great. It protects against basically everything, and even if you don't wear the helmet you still get half-protection for your head.]
Krieg took the helmet off the suit of plate armor and put it on.
"MY SKULLBOX BREAKS YOUR RIBCAGE!"
The Curse Broker replied, "Well, yes, technically wearing just the helmet would provide half-protection to your body. But why would you-"
"MY BLOOD IS IN YOUR BLOOD!"
The Curse Broker asked some really ridiculous questions sometimes. Krieg enjoyed bleeding too much to just give it up completely like that. And as long as it wasn't a headshot, he could probably just walk and/or murder it off anyway.
[Wait, did he just actually understand you? Huh, I guess that must have been what that spell he cast on himself did. Some kind of psycho-to-sanity translator. Man, if only everyone had one of those.]
Krieg didn't see why that would be necessary when people should just be learning to speak sensibly instead.
[Ugh. Anyway, it'll take the rest of our money, but this sword sounds perfect for you. You should definitely take it.]
"SHARPSTICK CAN'T MAKE BONEBUZZ SONGS FOR THE GARBAGE PEOPLE!"
Krieg was a psycho. Murder just wouldn't be the same without a buzzaxe. The voice just didn't really seem to get it, sometimes.
The Curse Broker cleared their throat. "Ah, if I may interject - while I normally wouldn't offer this, if it will… expedite your purchasing process, I can simply meld the Sword with your existing, ah, 'buzzaxe.'"
[Heh, I think they want to just kick us out already. Still, if they're gonna give both of us what we want, just take them up on it.]
Krieg nodded enthusiastically. A buzzaxe upgrade was always a wise investment.
The Curse Broker took the sword from the display and gestured for Krieg to hand over his buzzaxe, which he reluctantly did. They then murmured something that sounded like "forgive me," and pressed the two together. With a flash of bright light, the sword was subsumed into the form of the buzzaxe.
Looking weirdly like they wanted to cry for some reason, the Curse Broker handed Krieg's extra-shiny upgraded buzzaxe back to him. Krieg revved it experimentally.
Its buzz sounded like the wailing of a chorus of tormented souls now. Like people being viciously butchered over and over and over. Like the cry of final despair from somebody who knew their violent demise was only a fraction of a second away.
It was wonderful. Krieg had never heard something that made him feel so much at home. This purchase was already worth it, and he hadn't even murdered anyone with it yet!
The Curse Broker sighed in relief. "It's over. It's finally over. Now get the hell out of my store, and never speak to me or my Curses ever again."
With a wave of their hand, Krieg was transported into a moonlit clearing in the woods. On the other side of the clearing, a horde of what were unmistakably some kind of zombies were pursuing a small band of bleeding, terrified humans.
Krieg shouted in delight and charged headlong at the zombies, his wonderful enhanced buzzaxe screaming in anticipation. As he did so, the voice muttered, seemingly to itself.
[...Did that fucker just meme at us?]
2024 words in the fanwork.
[K] Resilient [2 Copper]
[K] Violet [2 Copper]
[K] Red [1 Jade]
[K] One [1 Copper]
[K] Ten [2 Platinum]
[K] Sword [5 Copper and 1 Platinum]
[K] Plate [2 Platinum]
[K] Stain - The Captain +2 Copper
[K] Tarnish - The Hunted +2 Platinum
[K] Violet [2 Copper]
[K] Red [1 Jade]
[K] One [1 Copper]
[K] Ten [2 Platinum]
[K] Sword [5 Copper and 1 Platinum]
[K] Plate [2 Platinum]
[K] Stain - The Captain +2 Copper
[K] Tarnish - The Hunted +2 Platinum
OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
A Player character option from Borderlands 2 IIRC.
Birdsie
Sharp Talons Cleave The Worthy
- Location
- Poland
Almost Every Day
As far as traveling went, their drift towards Enoch's academy had been awkward and cumbersome, with no party engaging in any particular conversation of interest for any duration longer than five minutes. When they did speak, it was most often to exchange basic facts about their environments, or remarks about what they believed was going to be ahead of them in the academy, as well as the occasional complaint about how long it was taking to get there. It didn't point towards an asocial group, so much as one that had much to hide about themselves.
Maybe a group that inherently grasped the possible risks of engaging in social interaction in an environment as potentially hostile as where they were going. After all, it was a place where normal people went and, sometimes, emerged from as tyrannic dictators or stone-cold killers.
After drifting for so long, he was almost ready to fall asleep and let himself dream of more pleasant matters. If they'd been fortunate enough to not have to share a narrow space with each other, he would've been tempted to practice more in the Spiral. It had always been one of his favorite-
"Huh, it seems we're almost there," Paulette declared as she looked to the front of the boat. She pouted, slamming her fist against the boat's red brim, almost petulantly, and huffed. "I expected this journey to last a few days, I even packed snacks!"
At her side, Harry Nichols - a boy dressed in a rather classic white-on-black NYC hoodie, dirty sneakers, and camel-yellow cargo pants - leaned over forward and looked in the same direction as her, eyebrow lifted in open skepticism.
He frowned promptly at the waves of the full-opaque mist roiling ahead of them like gaseous parapets of fog, obscuring anything past the range of several yards.
His voice was laced with subtle sarcasm, "Really? I don't see it. How can you tell?"
"Welp. It's time to save the world and make Mama and Papa proud! Oh, and Uncle Blaze too, I guess," she replied nonsensically - and noncommittally - drawing confused looks from the people on the boat.
And then she tapped her round, glassy ruby earring, causing it to abruptly light up with a red shine. "Oi, Vertex, wake up."
A cutesy digital voice replied from within the earring, the brightness of the ruby's light spiking with its voice. "Vertex waking up!"
A static pop went off next to their ears - causing a few of the boys onboard to flinch, and Harry to almost fall over in a scramble to get away - and a gentle sphere of amaranth now floated in the middle, between all of them. It bobbed in the air in regular motions, and then swooped around and flew over their heads, like a drone. A brief second later, its light extended into the mist around them as a shining, conical holographic grid of even scanning lines and lasers, rufescently-piercing luminescence seemingly drawing in data until the small sphere was satisfied and beeped a few times, lowering itself.
Out of everyone, it was the female Dragon accompanying them - a young Arab girl dressed in a pressed suit - who reacted first and maybe in the most unexpected fashion possible - by sputtering. "W-What kind of magic is that?"
It continued to speak in the same voice as before, "Analysis results: Whaw, gee Miss Legrand, these people sure can bend space like no one's business!"
It was more or less at this point when Agent Merigold of the Joint Resistance Task Force realized that, in the absence of the casual, day-to-day strangeness involved in his progression in the Ordinal Spiral, a new form of strangeness had found its way to him.
I barely remember anything of Terrascape.
As far as traveling went, their drift towards Enoch's academy had been awkward and cumbersome, with no party engaging in any particular conversation of interest for any duration longer than five minutes. When they did speak, it was most often to exchange basic facts about their environments, or remarks about what they believed was going to be ahead of them in the academy, as well as the occasional complaint about how long it was taking to get there. It didn't point towards an asocial group, so much as one that had much to hide about themselves.
Maybe a group that inherently grasped the possible risks of engaging in social interaction in an environment as potentially hostile as where they were going. After all, it was a place where normal people went and, sometimes, emerged from as tyrannic dictators or stone-cold killers.
After drifting for so long, he was almost ready to fall asleep and let himself dream of more pleasant matters. If they'd been fortunate enough to not have to share a narrow space with each other, he would've been tempted to practice more in the Spiral. It had always been one of his favorite-
"Huh, it seems we're almost there," Paulette declared as she looked to the front of the boat. She pouted, slamming her fist against the boat's red brim, almost petulantly, and huffed. "I expected this journey to last a few days, I even packed snacks!"
At her side, Harry Nichols - a boy dressed in a rather classic white-on-black NYC hoodie, dirty sneakers, and camel-yellow cargo pants - leaned over forward and looked in the same direction as her, eyebrow lifted in open skepticism.
He frowned promptly at the waves of the full-opaque mist roiling ahead of them like gaseous parapets of fog, obscuring anything past the range of several yards.
His voice was laced with subtle sarcasm, "Really? I don't see it. How can you tell?"
"Welp. It's time to save the world and make Mama and Papa proud! Oh, and Uncle Blaze too, I guess," she replied nonsensically - and noncommittally - drawing confused looks from the people on the boat.
And then she tapped her round, glassy ruby earring, causing it to abruptly light up with a red shine. "Oi, Vertex, wake up."
A cutesy digital voice replied from within the earring, the brightness of the ruby's light spiking with its voice. "Vertex waking up!"
A static pop went off next to their ears - causing a few of the boys onboard to flinch, and Harry to almost fall over in a scramble to get away - and a gentle sphere of amaranth now floated in the middle, between all of them. It bobbed in the air in regular motions, and then swooped around and flew over their heads, like a drone. A brief second later, its light extended into the mist around them as a shining, conical holographic grid of even scanning lines and lasers, rufescently-piercing luminescence seemingly drawing in data until the small sphere was satisfied and beeped a few times, lowering itself.
Out of everyone, it was the female Dragon accompanying them - a young Arab girl dressed in a pressed suit - who reacted first and maybe in the most unexpected fashion possible - by sputtering. "W-What kind of magic is that?"
It continued to speak in the same voice as before, "Analysis results: Whaw, gee Miss Legrand, these people sure can bend space like no one's business!"
It was more or less at this point when Agent Merigold of the Joint Resistance Task Force realized that, in the absence of the casual, day-to-day strangeness involved in his progression in the Ordinal Spiral, a new form of strangeness had found its way to him.
- Almost Every Day
I barely remember anything of Terrascape.
RedV
Refuelling
- Location
- Right here