A Simple Transaction I
- Thread starter Rihaku
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A Simple Transaction I
Rihaku
The Internet
- A Simple Transaction I -
Foremost.
Despite its hubris, it was an appellation well-deserved.
Hunger, for all the inconceivable progression of months past, still found his power wanting in the face of his enemy's Supreme Grace; his perceptions shorn, cut away by his own hand to avoid being beguiled by her visage; even the screaming fall of his sword-stroke - easily sufficient to rend the lower and higher multiverse entire - not quite a match for her agility. Only the supreme martiality worn deep into his blade, like a groove etched on bone, allowed him to maintain some illusion of parity before the blinding radiance of her talent.
She was an adroit foe, Catherine's doppelgänger, this harkening rebel who had stolen her face and presumed to lessen him by it: perhaps the mightiest his present incarnation had ever faced, and the most stubborn. It chafed him to see Catherine's strength turned against him, to witness reflected in the Maiden's every action his wife's dying litany.
Win. That's all that matters.
Her unremitting blitz continued, foot descending from a high-kick to slice downward upon his shoulder blade; abandoning subtlety he rushed forward in a tackle, pre-empting the strike's momentum to intercept it with greater mass. The eviscerating light of his Blood Halo sliced her defenses to tatters; shorn of her veil the Maiden merely blazed infinitely brighter, destroying brilliance that repulsed his influence comprehensively. One-handed he reflected that light with the semi-matte flat of his blade, bleak brutalist steel pushing through the rays of dawn. The glare could not wound him; he had already cut out his eyes.
At blade's approach the Maiden finally drew forth a hammer of gilt iron, matching steel to steel. And though it shattered irreparably upon contact, its dying burst released a pulse of hyper-focused Nullity, rendering his blade and fingers both nerveless and unmoving - temporarily made wholly mundane. The firing pattern of ordinary musculature, no matter how optimized, was a subjective eternity at their speeds.
Nonetheless he pressed onwards, Verschlengorge upon his shoulders roaring as its Devouring Shroud, unleashed at last, drained away her radiance, a maw spooling light more inescapably than any singularity. Seizing the crucial moment Hunger mustered himself, scraping hollow what felt like the last of his Praxis reserves. His right hand disabled, with explosive quickness he struck with his left: a fulsome uppercut to the solar plexus, conceptual core of her inner light and a primary chakra for findross emission. Bone and organ both broke before that hideous strength; rupturing destruction that pulsed outwards to fracture her skeleton into spearlike shards. She sailed away, an unfurling flower, beautiful even when falling.
At last, a telling blow.
Unable to fully direct his strength, the crack of that impact splintered the physical realm around them: arrow of entropy jaunted and slid sideways as locality and electrodynamics came asunder. A triviality - the horrific consequences thereof would unfold too slowly to matter.
The Maiden continued to fly, faultless teeth clenched in pain as her skeleton slowly realigned, ribcage and sternum both flattened by that abrupt pulverization. Struts and casts of findross appearing to delicately brace her broken frame, she coughed once: a soft dainty sound, flecks of blood like rubies in the void.
And yet, she did not seem displeased.
Gracefully Catherine drifted with the impact, allowing the brutality of his strike to carry her far, far away; now performing complicated workings of findross as she flew. Shimmering jewels of reified grace began to appear upon her fingers, each a celestial teardrop so exquisite that even the evening sky seemed as peeling wallpaper in comparison.
She closed her fist and the jewel-lights converged, fusing into a nexus of some unfathomable nature. Fighting exhaustion Hunger prepared to strike again, unwilling to permit the assembly of whatever she'd prepared. But he found his footwork stifled by the nexus' pearlescence, skating askew against a too-smooth sheen now swiftly being lidded over all reality.
Asserting his dominion of space he corrected his position, but by then the Maiden had already maneuvered farther and to his flank, seemingly uninterested in pressing the attack as she continued to feed jewels into her miniature… coalescence.
Ah.
If matters continued as they had, then this mirror-caricature of Catherine would indeed prevail, though it might cost her grievously. And yet what did that matter before the Apocryphal Curse, whose well of foes was unfettered and limitless?
Dien Bravo had been a shattered mote, less the true Surgeon than a single flake of its dermis; young as she was, the Maiden had come against him in full. Likely it was hubris to think he could overwhelm the Foremost unaided, much as he wished her cut down by his own hand. Now Hunger's strength flagged from grotesque exertion in the Praxis, the weight of his wounds only compounding that fatigue. Mighty as the sword was, still there were things mightier.
Such as, he sighed mentally… the peerless talent of a true genius. One who might genuinely be considered the foremost exemplar of her species. Though he had wished to avoid his companions abrading their selfhood by even one iota, it appeared their uttermost would be required now.
Deep in the Voyaging Realm his Princess-Regent detected that intention, triggering one final contingency. Adorie, Augustine, Arcanist and annoying renaissance woman all would unite, separate fingers become a fist of concerted prowess conjoining Mirellyian blood, the Lord Protector's skill, the Maker-Shard's nature, and Allrian virtuosity. All but the final step of that grand ritual had already been performed, its potential lying abeyant to erupt at his command. Completion now was but a matter of a single gesture, less than a whisper of motion which, ensconced in the heart of his territory, the Maiden had little ability to perceive.
Infinite as she was, by her nature the Maiden embodied youth; and the most treacherous of her Sorceresses had one card left to play.
Unheralded, Gisena-the-Maker took the field slipping silently beside Hunger, absorbing and refining the Maiden's Nullity which had incapacitated his arm and Blade. She allowed her new form to be lacerated by his murderous light, offering Mirellyian blood to its eponymous Halo. Already he could feel his Praxis well restored, and soon filled to overflowing. Though badly wounded still, his stamina now would not flag even if the battle drew long. The vigor of his fearsome opening strikes could be repeated with a fury.
He cut.
Like a ribbon before shears the universe parted, Maiden and burgeoning coalescence within easy reach once more. The iridescent sheen of her singularity stymied him - raw strength skittering without purchase against impossible sleekness - but the unbridled offensive of a second full sword-stroke tore headlong through.
The Maiden fled, barriers of ineffable reality cracking like a cosmic eggshell before that obliterating strength, light laced crimson exposing the naked truth: that all things could but yield before the Forebear of Dynasties, whose might was force wedded to oppression inextricably.
Thereby the contest of dominion began also to shift, Foremost runes in a constellation about Gisena shaping ambient findross into a form more pleasing to them. In time that battle also would tip in their favor. Hunger no longer had to overcome, merely endure, the final frenzied attentions of the Maiden's setting sun.
For a moment his foe at last appeared disoriented, lashing out with an array of tactics seemingly desperate and ill-considered. From Gisena she sought to strip the Sorcery of her core arsenal, as was her right as progenitor; but the refutation of Nullity was absolute - for Catherine was Maiden not mother, and what else was there to say? Then at the Human Sphere came the hurled nucleus of her nascent coalescence, unstable complexion rippling with prismatic flux; but a resurgent Aobaru gamely intercepted once more, answering light with heat in explosive frisson that projected outwards and sideways to leave the realm unscathed.
Hunger's onslaught the Maiden parried with a spear of silent purity, its aura a physical ache like the unicorn gleam of sunrise upon silver. Shedding Sky and flesh he plunged through its presence; teeth of that maelstrom stripping muscle from bone, bathing him in his own lifeblood like some self-churning abattoir. Nonetheless a single stroke of his Blade cleaved through her weapon and into its mistress behind.
Against Tyranny given form, innocence was as worthless a shelter as dignity.
—-
The Forebear of Dynasties.
In faraway eons before her birth he had bestrode the greater cosmos as tyrant unflinching; at his fall infinite multitudes had rejoiced, free at last of his iron stranglehold. At its best his reign was a gilded cage; at its worst, ruin everlasting.
Hark his approach which is unrelenting conquest. All who resist are plunged into war. The implement of his strife is unmerciful Hunger. And upon his advent, he brings only death.
Few lived now who remembered the Forebear at his height, the terror-transcending helplessness of his merest advance. If she failed here, then that was the fate of this and every realm in all the far-flung ontologies within his illimitable span. He was an instrument with only one purpose.
It was almost admirable, his absolute purity of will. She was not without sympathy to his nature; one could hardly emerge from the Procession of Worlds as anything less, and none but he had ever broken free. Yet he had bought his liberty by becoming an oppressor just as inescapable.
Nothing of his past could change their diametrical opposition.
Would that she were only more capable of prosecuting it.
The Maiden's silver spear, product of uncountable ages, as far beyond the Archsmith's hammer as the dawn sun was to candlelight - still had broken before Lord Hunger's reckless power, the all-severing Cut his Blood Halo embodied. That she had flensed the flesh from his tattered frame in recompense was small consolation.
To a lesser being such would be a thousandfold mortal wounds; shrapnel like a spray of stars glinting and slicing through his bloody remains - but the will that animated Lord Hunger was far beyond such petty destructions. He would persist, even lessened, and she would perish.
The Maiden was prodigious, but she was no Genius. Despite her luxury of infinite time, Gisena Allria had already in some aspects surpassed her.
Even within the Foremost, there could be a first among equals.
But even a genius was not without her own weaknesses. For she to whom all things came easily, it was only natural to witness a deficit in the very arena of her lord's strength: the mettle which obtained only from true adversity. The determination to prevail that both Maiden and Tyrant embodied wholly - that, Gisena lacked. And so it was difficult, for one less invested, to predict the actions of those so unstoppably driven.
Though her hopes were at a close, Catherine's will did not falter. Her flesh could fail, her spear could fail, her Grace could fail, the day could fail, yet it was not in her to fail.
Perhaps all the Foremost had shattered themselves in pursuit of such unyielding principle. How could they do otherwise, in the face of a world that scorned their ideals? And so the Maiden followed the path of her forebears.
Even as Hunger closed in for the mortal stroke, even as the Forebear's Blade split her in twain, she heaved the angular blades of her forearm-bones forward into a blow that spent everything of her self. Pressed by the momentum of his own unstoppable charge, he had no time to evade - could scarcely even perceive - her final counter-thrust, aimed to pierce through the very core of his being.
This all she shattered on victory's altar - victory though none to see it; victory no matter the cost; for all that mattered was Tyrant felled, even ere the heavens fall - and struck true.
His heart, savaged by earlier injuries, was thereby impaled; cored from his body like a pitted peach, and with her strike came obliteration so utter that there was no hope whatsoever for recovery. Liberty and tyranny matched essence to essence in mutual annihilation, eradicating the very nature of Lord Hunger, bleak reflection of his matrimony long ago. Till death do us part.
The halo of crimson, implement of his tyranny, would see blood spilled, but never replenished. Its forbiddance against healing was absolute. Even as Hunger fell it blazed unstoppably, hiltless blade by which he had brought her to the very edge of ruin, and which now would bring selfsame unto him. With such Blood was the tree of liberty watered. By his own tools, Lord Hunger was undone.
Of course that halo-light still sought futilely for purchase against the remnant husk of her body - there was nothing it would not cut - but not enough remained of her to be meaningfully severed. Of the Maiden now, precious little remained; scattered shards in the beautiful shape of a person, light at so perilous an ebb that the mere dark of space might see it extinguished for good.
She'd won. Gisena Allria would see this ontology well in stead, benevolence without oppression easily within her means. It was no ideal victory, but she'd never expected as such against his like.
The Maiden smiled as her eyes slid closed, preparing at long last, to rest…
And yet. Why was the Genius smirking still? That smug insufferable smile was not the triumphant cackling of one who had successfully maneuvered foe and tyrant both into mutual annihilation and could now preside unimpeded, grievously wounded or not, over the remains. It was almost gentle, full of affection for the man Catherine had irrevocably slain.
Even as she bled the Genius raised a palm, and from her outstretched hand came forth a torrent, a sea of Nullity dammed, angled to channel its force towards the circle of blinding crimson at Hunger's back. Beset by Foremost ablation the Halo of Blood fluttered, then strained, and finally tore free; like a pennant untethered by hurricane winds, light become nothingness in Nullity's smothering grasp...
Leaving behind only the Ring of Blood.
The Ring Hunger.
From Lord Hunger's corpse came forth his shade: Forebear's Blade in hand, a crimson flare upon ghostlight fingers; and the thunder of his stride was the stroke of doom.
Her eye very nearly twitched. Bait her into the Shattering Blow, then annul his own Halo that he might return - lessened, but not nearly so far as she. Already in her mind she could hear his tiresome refrain, age and treachery and all that...
So be it.
She, too, had one final card to play. One that even the Genius would patently dislike. What age and treachery could never offer, the Maiden had already secreted away.
Tyranny could not be negotiated with, save that you possessed its true desire.
"Your wife."
Hunger raised a single eyebrow, but did not break stride.
"Through my mantle she could be returned to life. In truth and utterly. Without provoking the intervention of those who forged the Forebear of Dynasties. Your child as well."
The nature of innocence was this: when she spoke a lie, her interlocutors knew it for a lie; and so too when she spoke the truth.
He scoffed. "You would inhabit her as you do this current vessel?"
"No." She shook her head. "To return her would require more than all that remains of me. But your Crowning Curse has already promised its aid. Catherine would thereafter be Foremost, and myself a mere part of her. It would not be possible were her nature not already aligned with mine. You already know, better than any, how small a change that would be."
Grimly he smiled then, blade aloft. "What do you want?"
If one wife, one child, could matter so much to him, he who had raised Dynasties beyond number and seen them fall to ash… then he was not yet lost to the past, as he had once been lost to the long march of his Procession.
He was, as yet, more than an echo of the Forebear.
"The price of my hand?" She replied, returning his smile with her own. "A simple transaction. Take up a portion of my values, and proliferate them by your reign. Worry not. What I intend to request, even you will find reasonable."
The blade did not lower, but Hunger spoke. "...And here I had thought our differences irreconcilable."
Her smile grew rueful. "Marriage is about compromise, after all."
—-
This is the final vote of A Simple Transaction I. After 169 threadmarks, the end is finally nigh! A deep and heartfelt thanks to all of my readers - without you, there would be no Lord Hunger, no Gisena or Letrizia, no Aeira or Adorie, and no story of theirs to conclude.
Aobaru would of course always have existed.
[ ] Vengeance - Carry on, O Forebear of Dynasties. You have debts yet to pay. A debt of gratitude to your patron, who rescued you from your lowest point; and a debt of the sword to the Hidden Ones, who brought you there. Cut through, even she who you cannot bear to cut.
*Pass the final test. Become the Forebear of Dynasties in truth. You are no mere lord; your vice no mere hunger: you are he who was King once, and is now King again.
*+++++Gisena, +++Haeliel, ++Accursed Favor. Happiness is lighter than a feather; duty is heavier than eons.
*The Forebear, naturally, gains the power of every non-contradictory advancement of the Forebear's Blade hence offered, including the Inheritance Heroic Advancement. He retains Blood Halo, after working to restore it; for Hunger is the Forebear no less than the reverse. As his reign and onslaught commence, Devouring War will mitigate a progressively greater portion of the Decimator's Affliction. If the Forebear's standard shall be a pennant of blood, then the future will know only war.
*There's a chance, not even that remote, that the Forebear returned will one day be capable of lifting the Doom of Tyranny from the Accursed's shoulders, and realize his vengeance against the Hidden Ones. After all, it was no less than he who broke free of the Bleak Procession by strength alone. If successful, then by definition he would be a High Cursebearer - capable of performing an act relevant to the Accursed himself.
*Do your part to hasten the Victorious World!
You see now the self-same machinations behind the evil that set you first upon the Procession of Worlds and then your doomed mortal life. Resigned to tyranny you may be, but it need not be so for the Accursed; and if you should reach heights sufficient to extirpate the Forebear's curse from him then the victorious world will be all the closer.
As you chose in the beginning, so too now do you choose, with knowledge fully realized: not a life of joyful frivolity for the Forebear of Dynasties, for that is neither his gift nor his burden. Only the forward march, into sorrow, into greatness, into the terror and dusk; for none can bear it better than him, and he brings not peace but a sword.
Tremble, you ones in high places, who wreathed in shadows thought yourselves invincible. The Forebear of Dynasties is returned in full, and the fall of his blade is your ruin come at last.
[ ] Freedom - "Once you prescribed to pay me back for the powers I had imparted on you. Do me this favor, old foe: rest. Let me never again be forced to take up arms against you...
…It was a difficult enough fight the first time."
*++++++++++True Catherine, +++++Hunger's Kid, ++++++++++Accursed Favor.
*Hunger will structure this and his future reign so as to limit the scope and severity of potential tyranny, installing safeguards against the grossest theoretical abuses of power.
*De-commissions Novakhron for some future hero to wield.
*The Apocryphal Curse will depart as Hunger relinquishes his command over the Lathe of Heaven. Hunger will remain a Combat-type Cursebearer with all his other Curses. For one such as he, of course, such a burden hardly counts as adversity. That's fine. Some endings are interesting enough to not be worth perturbing with future drama.
*Rest, Lord Hunger. Even the wildest of journeys will eventually seek a conclusion; rejoice that yours was a happy one.
Lay down your sword, tyrant of tyrants. The Forebear of Dynasties is past. You are not he, consigned to ruin in every word and every deed. It is not his sword by which you chose to be named, but the Ring. Perhaps you see now that the only king your blade aloft would murder was ever and only the wielder. Take what you have earned and find your sunset land, your quiet idyllic realm somewhere between dawn and evening: and for once in your life, be happy.
Who is to say that you will be disbarred from adventure forever? No, let it simply be that the adventures to come, come about by your choosing - by your will and hand, not some unending procession curated by those on high.
The era may arise when strife and wickedness again engulf the land, crying out for a hero; but it is not this era. The day may come when you must once more take up your blade; but it is not this day. The hour of destiny's summons may yet alight upon your shoulders, but it is not this hour.
Rest, O hero.
At long, long last, your dalliance of a season has come to an end.
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Rihaku
The Internet
Logistical matters:
*The Patreon will open for one month in July for any final AST I-related commissions, activities or epilogues.
*Any further Arete generated will... iunno, improve Hunger's Mental Stability regardless of which route he takes. He may well need it in both! The former for its sheer adversity, the latter simply to adjust. The hero's journey is a harrowing one, after all.
*I'm declaring a general vote marker immunity for this vote. Vote markers may not be called/honored herein.
*Sorry for posting a story update in this CYOA thread.
*The Patreon will open for one month in July for any final AST I-related commissions, activities or epilogues.
*Any further Arete generated will... iunno, improve Hunger's Mental Stability regardless of which route he takes. He may well need it in both! The former for its sheer adversity, the latter simply to adjust. The hero's journey is a harrowing one, after all.
*I'm declaring a general vote marker immunity for this vote. Vote markers may not be called/honored herein.
*Sorry for posting a story update in this CYOA thread.
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OctarineShrike
Avatar of Mandos
[x] Freedom
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- Location
- Victoria
[X] Freedom
The choice here seems clear enough.
The choice here seems clear enough.
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[X] Vengeance
As they say, evil triumphs when good Tyrants do not Cut Through.
We are offered a chance to defeat a Curse. To do good on scale well beyond any comprehension. And we should endeavor to do so, for what is a sacrifice of a single man weighted against making uncaring universe care just a tiny bit?
Seriously guys, consider for a moment sheer implication of making Accursed free of Tyrant. That's actually big. Like big big.
As of Hunger's happiness, we can forge it along the way, as we did thus far. Also Gisena x Hunger
As they say, evil triumphs when good Tyrants do not Cut Through.
We are offered a chance to defeat a Curse. To do good on scale well beyond any comprehension. And we should endeavor to do so, for what is a sacrifice of a single man weighted against making uncaring universe care just a tiny bit?
Seriously guys, consider for a moment sheer implication of making Accursed free of Tyrant. That's actually big. Like big big.
As of Hunger's happiness, we can forge it along the way, as we did thus far. Also Gisena x Hunger
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
...Magnificent. Utterly Magnificent. I cannot imagine a better ending for the quest. The fact that the final vote is the same as the first one...
This has truly been something special. And now the chance comes, to once again vote, in favor of,
[X] Freedom
My choice was made before I even read the options, but reading the Accursed's words for Hunger sealed things for me.
This has truly been something special. And now the chance comes, to once again vote, in favor of,
[X] Freedom
My choice was made before I even read the options, but reading the Accursed's words for Hunger sealed things for me.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's our fucking boy!!!! That's OUR GUY!!!
Rihaku
The Internet
But even more important was Gisena's ability to Nullify your build decisions!
God, I completely had forgotten about that form. I started trying to remember if we ever got that final final form as well, I can't even remember it procing before except, once in the moon temple? That was a blast from the past.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
No more politics here, no more trade. Only honest effort, honest votes, and the trenches. Let's do it one last time, gang.
HoratioVonBecker
Imperfectly Aligned
Something slower and more explorative, that won't have us outscaling the plothooks. Something in the loose vein of Worm, JJBA, or Undead Unluck might be good, where powerlevels aren't as clear, puzzle bosses with improv engineering than a thing with powerlevels per se.
nevermind I want the next quest to have higher power levels and faster scaling
Quack qua quack, quack modulo quack.
Who's that?
What's the reference?
...
And now, the conclusion.
Freedom only decommissions the Apocryphal Curse, right -- not the Geass of Indenture, which sends us onto future worlds?
It's just that the worlds will be scaling to match a Combat-type Cursebearer rather than a Progression-type Cursebearer. Meaning that they are much much more survivable because Hunger trains like a madman and so would probably overshoot things for a Combat-type.
No more rubber-banding or Surprise Calamities for us anymore, without the Apocryphal Curse.
It's just that the worlds will be scaling to match a Combat-type Cursebearer rather than a Progression-type Cursebearer. Meaning that they are much much more survivable because Hunger trains like a madman and so would probably overshoot things for a Combat-type.
No more rubber-banding or Surprise Calamities for us anymore, without the Apocryphal Curse.
Lealope
Not yet invincible
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They'll still scale to Hunger but like... look at him! It's been a year and he's already reached this height. Without the Apocryphal Curse, Hunger's ascent is simply unstoppable.
