The operation or activity of two or more things at the same time or rate. Obviously we bound ourself to Versh via the Decimator but now I'm wondering if this effect is only one Cursbearer to one mech. Could we Mitigate the Apocryphal by finding the Interesting Armament? Rihaku did say that our point of insertion would change with our choice in Curses.
Of course, there's no guarantee that our forebear in this universe shared more than the Decimator with us. Then again, for there to be tiers of Armament and for said mecha to be the Foremost's greatest tool, it's likely there were more than just 5 or so. Perhaps this place was something of a multiversal pitstop for Cursebearers? Or maybe there was more than one Cursebearer selected the last time the Accursed dropped by this world.
At last the onslaught of interesting times seemed to have abated for a span. Hunger awoke the next day to a fresh dawn, birdsong against a pink-gold sky, the world open and effervescent before them. A wind blew past, carrying the scent of lilies and roses, dewdrop lightness like a feather's caress.
Now don't lie Gisena, did you just dump as much findross as you could into our boy's surroundings so they would be as idyllic as possible when he woke up? Now that's crazy sweet, though I'm just being delusional.
He looked down to see the promised bouquet laid out around him. It was impressively bountiful and immaculately arranged. A smirk tugged at his lips. One ought expect nothing less from Lady Allria, though he wondered where she had gotten the flowers from. There was a card as well, made from creamy paper-stock which she must have scavenged from Letrizia's supplies.
Same place she got the materials to repair that dress from my guy. Just don't think about it. Alternatively, Letrizia had some flowers in her hyperspace pocket for some reason. Or maybe Letrizia made Vershlengorge use his Pressure to optimise
Shit, now I'm thinking about it.
To our hero, said the card, written in perfect calligraphic hand with a spontaneity and flourish that captured well the tone of its writer. He paused in his reading to look into the distance. The Sorceress really was frighteningly talented at nearly everything she turned her mind to. Did her powers of nullification somehow arise from that? As if to say, 'should this world be reduced to the human level, I would be Empress and none could stand against me?'
By the end of this quest, I want to do a tally of how many times Hunger has decided to just stare off into the distance at absolutely nothing. I could get it when you were reminded of your dead wife but this? Did the letter remind you of some cards you got from primary school children thanking you* for killing the Tyrant and saving the realm? Or is this just how you think now?
Also, now I really regret not getting Retinue for Gisena. That would actually make it possible to nullify the whole universe, perhaps by the end of the task. Then she really would be the Eternal Empress of the entire Human Sphere. It's not like Hunger is particularly suited to ruling so she'd be doing most of the work anyway.
*okay, i paused here because i was reminded of that one letter from that one kid in luseng and this time i was the one who was staring off into the distance. you're off the hook, hunger
Idle speculation. Gisena was too irresponsible for that. He returned to his reading.
I suppose the nature of the Implicate Duty is hard to grasp, even for someone as experienced and intelligent as Hunger. Rest assured my guy, Gisena has the potential to be more responsible than you can imagine. Too responsible, even. A good reminder that, though these two have grown significantly closer through this crisis, they've only known each other for five days.
I doubt she'd want to be Empress anyway, if only because that might get in the way of her nerd shit. But it's certainly not because of any dearth of responsibility on her part. After all, she's looking after you, Hunger!
I hope you enjoy this lovely bouquet. I spent nearly half an hour on it! Also, I've worked on your Curses, about as well as could be managed. You should find that the times are slightly less interesting, and your Decimator's hunger more easily assuaged.
Love,
Lady Gisena Allria
Your Favorite Sorceress~
SHe said lOVe the PaiRIng IS reAL
More seriously, this was actually really kind and thoughtful of her. Just knowing that someone cares enough to provide a pleasant experience to you is a heartwarming and beautiful thing. And she even gave us tangible aid with it!
Poor Seram, for his first impression of Gisena to be so bad as to lose out on this experience entirely. What a sad sack. All he's got is Jeanne, who verbally kicked the shit out of him and everyone else. She did save his life though so I guess he's got that going for him.
Truly a terrifying woman. He set the card aside and examined his arm, which one evening ago had been little more than ash and bone. Healed now, sealed perfectly and without scar, though the long-ago amputations of his other arm and eye persisted.
He was human again, the spirit entwined inextricably with the flesh, though the potential of his wraith-form slumbered beneath, ready to awaken when his mortal coil failed. With an effort of will he brought that ghostflame to the surface, channeling it through his cloak of stars so that their ambient glow might continue to heal Letrizia.
Now that we know, we'd better watch out for abilities that can strike at our spirit like the Fell-Handed Stroke because those could break our Second Form's damage cap. If we can't Progress our forms, we should work on some Conjunctional Advancements that can mitigate the world of their weaknesses. For example, I imagine Opalescence would do a lot for our vulnerability to anti-magic in our second form while a higher resistance to Tiredness and Exhaustion would ameliorate the worst of the mechanical effects of our Rage.
Also, I imagine our cloak with ghostflame summoned looks like the sky just before dawn, that kinda weird pale blue the clouds become before the sun rises properly. That, or maybe an Aurora Borealis. Either way, I'm glad we picked a genuinely
a e s t h e t i q u e option for this quest; the Nameless had a few chances but dropped them while Zang Kong and Suizhen really stole the show there. Being an Immortal is sick and all but it's just so unfashionable.
Despite everything we did, we still didn't have enough Diagram in our lives.
Fucking All Paths.
The girl was laid in a makeshift cot beside his own, and the passing night had done well for her condition. The ghostfire's curative light worked slowly, but its healing was profound, and the grisly mass of burns that covered her left side had improved considerably in complexion and texture.
Another passing breeze blew a flower into Letrizia's face, and she grumbled, blinking into wakefulness, pushing herself upright with an elbow. Her eyes were still bleary as she touched her face with only a minute wince of pain.
You can tell Letrizia is absolutely not a waifu because I saw our boy deciding to sleep next to her to improve her healing and ease her pain and thought "Wow, powerful fatherly energy". Meanwhile, if this was Gisena I'd be throwing a party on the completely empty streets.
Also, was that a subconscious use of Accretion to wake Zea up with a flower as soon as our boy felt like talking to her? Because I'd call bullshit on it otherwise but that seems like the sort of storybook stuff our power deals in.
"Am I...?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"
"Ah!" she startled. "Um, hey! Don't tease me right now! Can't you see I'm injured!?"
The cutest in the universe. She's getting better at dealing with us too; she isn't stuttering anymore and is willing to fire back. Still getting dunked on by both mom and dad tho.
He turned away. "Such a stoic pilot. A shining example for all who wish to join the Armament Corps."
She pouted. "As if there's such a thing! Anyway, I do feel a lot better. Guess I've got you to thank for that?"
Hmm. Curious to know how this scene would've changed if we'd taken the +Letrizia. I'm guessing it would have been something like:
>Ber was after the Armament
>Hunger saved my life from that last hit
>Then he hunted down something to heal me and deal with the horrible nerve damage and burn scars that would have ended my career
>despite having just been in an exhausting fight and apparently scaring off the guy that did this
>what a hero
Or thereabouts. I'm really curious how adding a + to the Gisena scene changed things, apart from the obvious. I don't know what the platonic interpretation of that soulful staring could be.
"Maybe it was Gisena." He buffed his fingers against his chest.
The idea of this scarred and muscular, one armed and one eyed man buffing his nails because he doesn't want to admit to doing something for someone is hilarious. What a powerful gap moe. Could Hunger have actually been the cutest in the universe all along?
"Hm!" She raised her palms to his cloak, as if basking in heat from a fire. "Feels nice, whatever this is. The light is so soothing, too... can I borrow this?"
"It won't work if I'm not wearing it," he said amusedly.
"No fair!" She snuggled against the soft drape, brushing her uninjured cheek against its cloudlike surface. "How come you get all the cool stuff?"
-said the Duchess of an interstellar empire with her own palace and legions of servants
Dunno Letrizia, have you tried being a fantasy character instead of a lame mech pilot? That usually works. If you want to have sweet magic loot, you'd better get out of the giant robot and start kicking ass on foot. Or just buy stuff from the civs of the Voyaging Realm, I guess, if you're lazy.
As a sidenote, when are we gonna get upgrades that'll let us turn the cloak into the Comfy Sky? We're already doing quite well with it emitting a light that soothes all wounds and how it lifts the effects of exhaustion. And shit, Fall of Night literally makes our body lighter; I think I've finally cracked the code for these enhancements.
"...You saying Verschlengorge isn't cool?"
"You tell me, Praehihr." She stuck her tongue out.
...did she just call us a royal tool? That title is honestly some serious shade.
"Rest." He patted her sternly on the head. "We've still got that blue swordsman to worry about. We'll stay at the lakeside for one day more to recuperate, then we need to decide on our next destination."
Someone, please write an omake of what was going through Letrizia's head when she got her first headpat from Hunger and don't worry about giving me diabetes. And aww, Hunger let her come out on top in a round of banter while she's wounded enough to need the win.
I'm reminded of a dog "wrestling" with his puppies. It's so cute. This idyllic family atmosphere has to be a result of
findross, there's no way it would be like this if it was just the brooding, extremely intense widower hell bent on vengeance and the pilot in over her head. Now that would be Control and Seram come again.
I wonder how she'd interact with Catherine, except for totally dunking on her socially?
"Hm," Gisena came up from behind them, plopping herself down on his opposite side. "I've got a few ideas in mind!"
"Eavesdropping again?" He flicked a rose at her, which she dodged artfully.
Why a rose, Hunger? Is there something on your mind? Are you just too tsundere to hand it to her so you have to disguise your intentions by throwing it instead? Too bad, you're entirely transparent. Everyone knows that you too flirt by flinging objects at each other; why else would she let you have her extremely dainty and pretty shoe? I'm on to you.
"When am I not?" She asked, stretching languidly. "You, who are within Nullity's regard, should not expect to escape it so easily!"
Subtle Gisena, maybe you should just yawn and put your arm around him next, it would be exactly as covert.
"A shame," he replied. "And here I hoped we could steal away with the Armament before you noticed."
"And deprive yourself of mine august company?" She batted her eyelashes. "You can't fool me! You simply love my noble presence too much to go even a day without."
"And I thought Seralize was entitled," he observed. "I guess she can't compete with a Sorceress, and a noble lady at that."
This just made me think of how vigorous Gisena's teasing will be if we actually bring her with us to the Temple. What a terrible first date! After all, you hired a babysitter for the kid and everything so you can enjoy a romantic moonlit walk with her into mortal peril into a blatantly evil Temple of yore?
...actually, Gisena might consider that a great first date. The only way it could be better is if those ruins were from an ancient, technologically advanced precursor civilization...
Shit, I might have ended up convincing myself into an eleventh hour betrayal.
"Naturally," Gisena preened, flicking her hair. She turned up her nose to expose her elegant neck, a haughty expression that was distractingly convincing. "Though, I imagine she was simply a solipsist. Entitlement only takes you so far, after all. To believe your enemy had given up and would simply let you kill him..."
Yeah, the expression was just so distracting and not at all her pale, elegant neck. Sure.
"A testament to my acting skills, nothing more." He replied. "I did sympathize with her, to a degree. Many times we attacked the Tyrant only to be repelled with severe losses. I too would swear vengeance with blind sincerity..."
But did you speechify right in front of him? The similarities are entirely superficial here; when you decided that he had to die, you just did it. C'mon my guy, you heard her talking about how her main reasons for attacking you were wealth and glory.
If nothing else, this shows Hunger's taking the Accursed's advice seriously, even though he's become significantly more heartless. If he's troubling himself over this stuff, how moral would he have been if we hadn't picked 2 Thick as Thieves? We should really think more like the Forebear; an vendetta driven hero isn't going to get anywhere in the Geas.
"Nonesense," Gisena shook her head. "Your Tyrant presumably lived up to his title. Whereas we haven't been bothering anyone!"
It's quite nice that Gisena trusts him enough to assume the best of his past. I mean, considering the Hero was the end of her civilization, it's not like she'd take the name at face value.
"There is Verschlengorge's Decimation," Letrizia said uncomfortably. "And his very existence is like a beacon in the Astral realm."
I think I might actually be a moron because this is the first time I noticed that it's Verschlengorge and not Vershlengorge.
Putting my idiocy aside for a second, I'm curious how and why Letrizia ended up piloting the giant genocide mecha if she's so squeemish about the damage it causes. Is that why Ver
sch is so messed up, because she continually hunted down enemies for Mitigation until he was weak enough to be defeated?
"That reminds me," he rose to his feet. It felt good, to be reasonably whole and free of wounds. Time to do that which he'd put off long enough. "Letrizia, if you're feeling able, I'd like to examine Verschlengorge today. We should investigate whether my Curse is in any way linked to his."
"Mhm!" She chirped, slowly rising to her feet as well. "Of course I can do this much. Just who do you think I am?"
"Don't know. But you do resemble... A certain redheaded pilot from a famous animated-"
Curious to know how many mecha shows Letrizia has watched. We know she's a massive weeb considering her hair colour but she might find giant robots fighting a bit too close to her actual life, especially when one in particular has gotten her resounding mockery.
Also, did Hunger get isekai'd into a future version of his homeworld? I suppose his memories of the specific name might have just faded but otherwise it's strange that they'd be exactly the same. Perhaps we could find out a bit more about who our boy was through Pressure applied probability manipulation? Assuming any records survived and we can even retain those memories, of course.
"You!" She slapped his arm angrily. "H-hmph! Just get in the robot, Hunger!"
"Not helping your case," he smugly said.
She said The Thing! I'm at least glad she's leaning into it but if Hunger read that as unintentional and not a joke, I'm curious how thoroughly this stuff has penetrated into her subconsciousness. With the existence of stuff like the Astral, I can't be a coincidence that she's literally Asuka.
Wounded as Verschlengorge was, its internals were mostly intact, and Letrizia, sporting fresh bandages, pointed out various systems of interest as they walked. The cockpit was reasonably spacious, a comfortably reinforced pilot's chair in front of an array of futuristic panels. A good portion of the array was cracked and badly seared, though no longer smoldering, the flames having desisted overnight.
Behind was storage space for the pilot's personal effects: pictures of Letrizia's family, various books and instruction manuals, an ornate military saber and a small fold-out cot.
Huh. I wouldn't have expected her to have pictures of her family, she doesn't strike me as someone who'd have a good enough relationship with them to care that much. Probably more distant and cold than outright abusive then. That said, I'm entirely unsurprised the little nerd keeps non-fiction books and how-to guides in there as opposed to something actually fun.
I'm somehow both resigned and disappointed to see she had a basic bitch sword with her and not some supertech High Frequency blade or a lightsabre. It figures the guys who provide their mecha pilots with pen and paper books wouldn't want to bring something as unreliable and subject to distortions in physical laws as I imagine anything actually cool would be.
"You've both ridden with me in the cockpit, so I don't need to explain the basics. You've mostly seen me use the manual controls, but there's another control scheme that can be employed when the Armament's Rank is sufficiently restored."
She pointed at the constellation of runes that covered the ceiling of the cockpit. "Totality. Merger of self and consciousness with the Armament. A much smoother means of control, as Verschlengorge has tactical reflexes many times faster than those of humans. It also prevents injury to the pilot, as our bodies are transposed within the Armament's Astral shadow."
"Hm. So the best way to learn any secrets, or unusual connections with the Armament-"
"Would be that, yes." Letrizia nodded. "I'm not sure how we'll actually pull it off, though. We need some way to heal Verschlengorge, and I don't think your ghost-light is up to the task."
"And in the meantime, his Curse of Decimation..."
"Well," Letrizia temporized. "It's really not so bad for short durations, and the range should be low since he's so badly weakened... but, yes. It's active, unless there's an interaction with your Curse that I don't know about. Verschlengorge can sate its hunger by hunting powerful opponents, though it weakens him somewhat. It's in no state to do that right now."
Mitigation Ver
schlengorge might be better than Huntress' Moon actually since it doesn't mention any level of specificity, even if it tires us out. Plus, I don't really want Hunger to constantly revisit the memories of his final encounter with the guy who defined his life and killed all his friends; he deserves to move on.
We really should pick up Conclusion when we've got the time and spare (lol) Arete.
We're more alike than you think, he mused, placing his hand on the Armament's control array. "So this cockpit is mostly human technology, but the ceiling is directly connected to the creature's flesh."
"That's right," Letrizia nodded. "The flesh and its runes are Foremost work. We don't understand it that well, to be honest."
He raised his hand, tracing his fingers across the runes, watching as they flashed blue at his touch. Something compelled him to place his palm against the center, the sense of affinity intensifying rapidly...
He did so, and a rumble of movement rippled through Verschlengorge, every rune suddenly alive and flaring, again the icy blue that cut across sight like a knife-wound in the real, the stencil-pattern of their arrangement carved into his mind, into his soul -
"Curse synchronization complete. Onwards, to the shining tomorrow. Welcome, Cursebearer."
The sense of affinity had solidified, become almost like a tangible thread between them, an umbilical cord of the spirit that apprised him of their relative locations. He understood instinctively that the Armament's ownership had been transferred to him, that it would obey his commands without question, and that the Curse that afflicted it was no more, merged seamlessly into his own without any increase in effect, so long as the leash between them was unbroken. There was a limited range, but it was vast, more than a planet's worth.
He narrowed his eyes. "The shining tomorrow...?"
Letrizia fidgeted. "You can understand it? A translation function built into your connection?"
"It's speaking in Foremost still?"
She nodded, eyes wide. "This is the most I've ever heard it say."
"Letrizia is still your pilot," he said to the machine.
The creature responded, its booming voice rattling the cockpit in which they stood. "Of course. She is more skilled than you, and We like her."
"Tell me what you know," he addressed the giant. "About Cursebearers, about the Foremost, the shining tomorrow. Tell me everything."
"Disclosure is restricted. We tire."
"Restricted to what? How do I qualify? Am I not a Cursebearer? What further is required?"
"Means of disclosure are restricted."
Hmm. Given Rihaku's previous comment that Communing with Vershlengorge would give us access to the deep lore, clearly talking isn't the way to be. That said, when Vershlengorge last talked, he was flashing with the light of a blue beyond the Truth. Is that an intrinsic property of speaking in Foremost when you actually understand it? Or was that just their super high end verification system to ensure no non-Cursbearer would be able to fool their systems.
But if that was the case, why would they tire when just talking? You'd think the Foremost would've given the option to use a less exhausting form of speech. Maybe they just assumed that any owner would work to Commune with it as fast as possible and not waste time with fucking fishing or whatever. Really, really have to take that option after dealing with Bearic and going to the Temple. With Vershlengorge under our command and our Curse contained, they'd probably be a lot more wary of not adding us to his retinue.
And with that, the runes lost their glow once more, and Verschlengorge went inert, speaking no more, no matter what was asked or how. The machine would still respond to manual commands, fighting as ably as ever, but the beast within was silent.
Well. At least they weren't being doubly decimated any more.
They weren't even being singly decimated after the pirate! I wonder how synchronization works? Normally I'd assume that both ends would need to be sated before the Curse would halt but that would make this form of Mitigation significantly worse. Hunting down legendary Astral beasts in our boy would be quite a worthwhile and productive form of Mitigation. Hopefully our Progression might even be able to compensate for his weakness.
Now that we've got confirmation that Versh is actually affecting realspace, if Letrizia's organization just leaves him hanging around major population centers, they're probably complete shitheads. Now I'm quite worried about our introductions, honestly, we better pump up those Letrizia +s or we might end up having to murder a whole bunch of them.
P.S: 2409 words.
P.P.S: Sorry it's unfinished, just wanted to get it in before the vote closes.
