I really want to joke about us breaking DP's train of thought with suddenly going to Qohor.
...Or making another Riot/Romanian ISP meme.

But DPs stated health makes his absence more of a worry than usual :o
 
I really want to joke about us breaking DP's train of thought with suddenly going to Qohor.
...Or making another Riot/Romanian ISP meme.

But DPs stated health makes his absence more of a worry than usual :o
Vote closed.
Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 24, 2020 at 10:50 AM, finished with 92 posts and 14 votes.
Well, at least I "still have it". :V
I'm fine other than feeling sleepy due to one of the pills I'm taking.
Plz, don't overextend yourself again.
I vaguely remember same stuff happening some times in quest's run, you writing when ill was never good for anyone involved.

Go get some slep DP.
 
I wouldn't be so sure, modern day, we're a lot more critical of Greek 'heroes'.
*Looks at manga(reader/nelo/org/etc)(novelupdates)(wuxiaworld) and all the manhua and their questionable protagonists*

I blame their lack of professionalism. It's been a while since the last Illiad was written, after all.
 
*Looks at manga(reader/nelo/org/etc)(novelupdates)(wuxiaworld) and all the manhua and their questionable protagonists*

I blame their lack of professionalism. It's been a while since the last Illiad was written, after all.
Ehhhh, I think at this point the Chinese asshole protagonist is more of a meme than it is an artifact of any kind of traditional literature. Perpetuated, incidentally, by the fact that the archetypes of the genre were popular with their target audience, and it's cheaper and quicker for dime store novelists to just regurgitate basically the same story beats with slightly different notes to make a quick buck.

Web serials who replicate the same thing have basically no excuse for it, however... except for the ones who manage to find a means to parody and satirize it in a manner that hasn't already been done, at any rate.
 
Interlude CMIII: Keys of Madness
Keys of Madness

Ninth Day of the Second Month 294 AC

Away from the walls wrought with sorcery and black stone, away from their horrid greeting, you might almost think Qohor was as any other place under the sun, any other city where the worst excesses one was likely to find was in the slave markets or perhaps the hearths of sorcerer-priests who were said to feed slaves 'too weak to be good at much else' into the flames. Alas, that was not so. Years of hunting hidden cults, servants of demons, devils and darker things had made Garin Drekelis quite adept in finding signs of otherworldly malice in the crowded streets. In Qohor he barely had to look.

Someone was selling infants in the Turnstreet Market, a lot of infants, enough to crash the market in what was already a limited niche of the slave trade. Most buyers expected a slave trained in a craft or skill, or at least old enough to do work. Only the most 'exacting' bought children to train themselves and practically no one bought infants, they were as likely to catch some nameless fever and die as grow up and make up for the price, yet he had never heard of a 'Turnstreet Babe' getting ill or dying, not one hint of a displeased customer coming back for their silver.

The only complaints had been from other slave traders and the priests of the New Faith, who now ruled Qohor with a rod of iron, had summarily dismissed the concerns according to what Mia had been able to discover from the city's churning rumor mill down by Hangman's Hill. The fact that she and Nuri had been attacked by surprisingly determined and well-armed 'footpads' on their way back to the inn yesterday did not bode well. The thugs, sellswords more like, recalled being paid silver for the attack, but they didn't have any recollection of the one who paid them besides the dark cloak and the strange bitter smell that hung around it, 'like almonds and old fish'.

Had they tripped some minor alarm asking about the odd merchants and their seemingly endless supply of very young slaves? Garin wondered. There was only one way to be sure.

***​

Eleventh Day of the Second Month 294 AC

The baby in his arms looked like a baby, round pudgy features wrapped in a rough grey cloth that was little more than a rag, a little tuft of dark hair peeking out from his head. He was oddly quiet. But then, Garin thought darkly, slaves likely learn to be quiet young. He walked quickly down the first alley he could find to get out of sight.

Truth be told he felt a touch nauseous in the guise he had taken up to justify his purchase. There was a certain sort of Pillow House owner across what was left of Essos' slaver cities with aspirations of filling the void left by Lys, of raising slaves that 'knew their place as well as Unsullied'. Though he would not have thought it possible half a year ago, learning just how Unsullied were trained had made that phrase sound even more horrifying.

At least this poor mite is spared that fate, whatever the hells is wrong with him, Garin thought while looking down at the child. His gaze was transfixed in horror as the child's eyes seemed to be gone, replaced with holes of utter blackness, but not empty, not still, something squirmed there, in the fetid darkness of some unknowable womb.

An image of madness seared itself into his mind, a many-limned goat with hooves, claws and writhing tentacles. In the center of its chest was a gasping maw ringed with razor sharp teeth, its head a skull crowned with six curling horns and surrounded by a floating circlet. It towered over the woods around it, over the city, over the world entire...


Garin bit back a scream and tasted blood in his mouth, the instinct to feed breaking the trance the way merely mortal horror could not. When he came back to himself he was holding not an infant, but a knot of blackened tentacles that faded like wisps of shadow in his grasp. He went home not by any common path, but over the roofs shrouded in glamor.

The memory of that hollow mocking skull stayed with him.

***​

He had never seen Xor look so somber before. Frightened, sad, even angry, yes, but never so grim. "The being you held was not merely marked by the Far Realm, but of it. Begotten by flesh but strange to it, a scion, perhaps a herald, meant to open the doors wider."

"Why sell them? Why spread them out like that?" Mia asked looking shaken, though doing her best to hide it as any inquisitor was trained to do. "Do they need to... er... feed to get to the next stage of their life cycle?"

"I do not think so," the many-eyed scholar replied. "We of the Far Realm are strangers here, and the greater the being who would pull itself through the more doors it must pass through. I believe these scions need to be taken in, accepted by those of this reality, a second time."

"Second time?" Garin asked, not sure he wanted to have his suspicions confirmed.

"Their begetting must have involved some sort of pact, once for birth and twice for buying, what is the next key?" It was clear Xor was thinking to himself as much as them. "Two does not rhyme, three maybe, five... seven. I hope it is seven."

"Couldn't they just resell them?" Nuri asked practically.

"No... no... it has to be qualitatively different," Xor shook from side to side slightly, the gesture still oddly slow for his floating form, though by now subconscious from all the years he had been dealing with mortals, often in their own shape. "I think the reason Garin did not keep the one he acquired was that he was not intending to retain it as a slave so the agreement fell apart."

"I think we should try to infiltrate these slavers," Mia started. "Or capture one of them at least..."

"Why not the church of the Green God?" Nuri interjected. "They want converts unlike the weird slavers, should be easier to slip in, or slip one of them out for interrogation."

What do your agents do?

[] Approach the eldritch slavers
-[] Infiltration
-[] Capture

[] Approach the New Faith
-[] Infiltration
-[] Capture

[] Write in


OOC: Nothing quite like writing cosmic horror to wake one up.
 
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... Well shit. It's a good thing we're going to purge these things out of Qohor. This might just be worse than the Daemon infestation in Tyrosh.

@DragonParadox, what do we have on the Flesh Forge of Qohor?
 
Keys of Madness

Ninth Day of the Second Month 294 AC

Away from the walls wrought with sorcery and black stone, away from their horrid greeting, you might almost think Qohor was as any other place under the sun, any other city where the worst excesses one was likely to find were in the slave markets, or perhaps the hearths of sorcerer-priests who were said to feed slaves 'too weak to be good at much else' into the flames. Alas, that was not so. Years of hunting hidden cults, servants of demons, devils, and darker things had made Garin Drekelis quite adept in finding the signs of otherworldly malice in the crowded streets. In Qohor he barely had to look.

Someone was selling infants in the Turnstreet Market, a lot of infants. Enough to crash the market in what was already a limited niche of the slave trade. Most buyers expected a slave trained to a craft or skill, or at least old enough to do work. Only the most 'exacting' bought children to train themselves, and practically no one bought infants. They were as likely to catch some nameless fever and die as grow up and make up for the price, yet he had never heard of a 'Turnstreet Babe' getting ill or dying, not one hint of a displeased customer coming back for their silver.

The only complaints had been from other slave traders, and the priests of the New Faith, who now ruled Qohor with a rod of iron, had summarily dismissed the concerns according to what Mia had been able to discover from the city's churning rumor mill down by Hangman's Hill. The fact that she and Nuri had been attacked by surprisingly determined and well armed 'footpads' on their way back to the inn yesterday did not bode well. The thugs, sellswords more like, recalled being paid silver for the attack, but they didn't have any recollection of the one who paid them besides the dark cloak and the strange bitter smell that hung around it, 'like almonds and old fish'.

Had they tripped some minor alarm asking about the odd merchants and their seemingly endless supply of very young slaves? Garin wondered. There was only one way to be sure.

***​

Eleventh Day of the Second Month 294 AC

The baby in his arms looked like a baby; round, pudgy features wrapped in a rough grey cloth that was little more than a rag, a little tuft of dark hair peeking out from his head. He was oddly quiet. But then, Garin thought darkly, slaves likely learn to be quiet young. He walked quickly down the first alley he could find to get out of sight.

Truth be told he felt a touch nauseous in the guise he had taken up to justify his purchase. There was a certain sort of Pillow House owner across what was left of Essos' slaver cities who had aspirations of filling the void left by Lys, of raising slaves that 'knew their place as well as Unsullied'. Though he would not have thought it possible half a year ago, learning just how Unsullied were trained had made that phrase sound even more horrifying.

At least this poor mite is spared that fate, whatever the hells is wrong with him, Garin thought, looking down at the child. His gaze was transfixed in horror as the child's eyes seemed to be gone, replaced with holes of utter blackness, but not empty, not still, something squirmed there, in the fetid darkness of some unknowable womb.

An image of madness seared itself into his mind, a many-limbed goat with hooves and claws and writhing tentacles, in the center of its chest a gasping maw ringed with razor sharp teeth, its head a skull crowned with six curling horns. It towered over the woods around it, over the city, over the world entire...


Garin bit back a scream and tasted blood in his mouth, the instinct to feed breaking the trance the way merely mortal horror could not. When he came back to himself he was holding not an infant, but a knot of of blackened tentacles that fades like wisps of shadow in his grasp. He went home not by any common path, but over the roofs shrouded in glamor. The memory of that hollow mocking skull stayed with him.

***​

He had never seen Xor look so somber before. Frightened, sad, even angry, yes, but never so grim. "The being you held was not merely marked by the Far Realm, but of it, begotten by flesh, but strange to it, a scion, perhaps a herald, meant to open the doors wider."

"Why sell them? Why spread them out like that?" Mia asked, looking shaken, though doing her best to hide it as any inquisitor was trained. "Do they need to... er... feed to get to the next stage of their life cycle?"

"I do not think so," the many-eyed scholar replied. "We of the Far Realm are strangers here and the greater the being who would pull itself through, the more doors it must pass through. I believe these scions need to be taken in, accepted by those of this reality, a second time."

"Second time?" Garin asked, not sure he wanted to have his suspicions confirmed.

"Their begetting must have involved some sort of pact, once for birth and twice for buying, what is the next key?" It was clear Xor was thinking to himself as much as them. "Two does not rhyme, three maybe, five... seven. I hope it is seven."

"Couldn't they just resell them?" Nuri asked, practically.

"No... no... it has to be qualitatively different," Xor shook from side to side slightly, the gesture still oddly slow for his floating form, though by now subconscious from all the years he had been dealing with mortals, often in their own shape. "I think the reason Garin did not keep the one he acquired was that he was not intending to retain it as a slave so the agreement fell appart."

"I think we should try to infiltrate these slavers," Mia started. "Or capture one of them at least..."

"Why not the church of the Green God?" Nuri interjected. "They want converts unlike the weird converts, should be easier to slip in, or slip one of them out for interrogation."

What do your agents do?

[] Approach the eldritch slavers
-[] Infiltration
-[] Capture

[] Approach the New Faith
-[] Infiltration
-[] Capture

[] Write in


OOC: Nothing quite like writing cosmic horror to wake one up. Not yet edited.
Here's an edited version of the chapter, @DragonParadox.

Y'all see what I mean about children? 🐙
 
@DragonParadox, do we have an estimate on how many babies would need to be sold and a rough CR of what would force its way through to Prime Material once that's complete? Given the reputation of the babies (mainly never getting sick) I'm guessing enough have been sold that we're close to the edge.
 
@DragonParadox, do we have an estimate on how many babies would need to be sold and a rough CR of what would force its way through to Prime Material once that's complete? Given the reputation of the babies (mainly never getting sick) I'm guessing enough have been sold that we're close to the edge.

There is no way to tell how many were sold, the operation was already in full swing by the time Garin and company rolled into town. You would have to get access to the slavers' documents of sale.

Garin is mindblanked how did the baby thing knew the deal was off?

It did not consciously know by reading Garin, its existence simply fell apart in the absence of a deal.
 
That baby dissolving was upsetting. Not for the eldritch horror part. But because magical babies (from bad homes) are some of my favorite loot! :mad:

We should snag some eldritch babies for ourselves. Maybe we can kidnap them?

That is qualitatively different from being sold and being born.

We could also flex the magical sympathy to "steal" them from the black goat.

Though the simple act of yeeting them might well be enough to trigger whatever their transformation is. (Not that that wouldnt be informative.)
 
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@DragonParadox, do we have an estimate on how many babies would need to be sold and a rough CR of what would force its way through to Prime Material once that's complete? Given the reputation of the babies (mainly never getting sick) I'm guessing enough have been sold that we're close to the edge.
Keep in mind that the babies being bought is only step two of whatever key the Thing is trying to make.
Two of 3, 5 or 7 steps.

What we need here is not numbers (they are propably not very relevant when it comes to Far Siders), we need the patterns.
We have to see what the next step is and then stop the baby-owners from doing that.
 
I fully agree with whoever was calling for an exterminatus.

This shit is worse than what Baator has been doing with unsullied genitalia.

Also, for whoever tries to argue that slavery is not that bad... well, look at what you can do thanks to slavery
 
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