Alivaril's good about figuring out what we mean. The issue here is that Lorelei cannot communicate to save her life - possibly literally - and her setting knowledge seems to be full of significant errors.
Actually, no, that was an error on my end. I thought you were defining "halfway decent" as "getting mileage out of an audience;" you can get a fine Surge without anyone and a handful of scouts wouldn't let you bend reality anywhere near enough to make it worth abducting them. You could likely make something neat out of the Warclock components, too.
Can other Inspired literally ask the source of their powers for information they have no way of aquiring normally? and get clear information that lets them surpass the methodology of other inspired?
Actually, no, that was an error on my end. I thought you were defining "halfway decent" as "getting mileage out of an audience;" you can get a fine Surge without anyone and a handful of scouts wouldn't let you bend reality anywhere near enough to make it worth abducting them. You could likely make something neat out of the Warclock components, too.
Ah, so audiences do need to be pretty big before they start doing anything meaningful. That makes sense.
Hm. I suspect that we'll want to KO the scouts when we take the warclocks to keep the army from noticing that we're doing things, but it's probably much easier to keep them unconscious. Especially given that "medicines" almost certainly includes general anesthesia.
...How good are the sedatives we can make without Surging? Can we see how this army is storing its water supply? We can open portals into water. It'd be so easy to load their entire water supply up with some high-end slow-acting sedative and wait until the entire army is asleep. Gank the Inspired, who I'd guess could probably pull off antidotes once they notice their army falling over.
You're honestly not sure about that. Dosage would likely vary by person and simply dumping vast quantities of it is likely to lead to a few stopped hearts. More importantly, you don't have what you'd need to make anything relevant. You might be able to buy them somewhere relatively close by, but although you know what the original plants look like, you don't know where they grow. You also don't know how the extra-fresh versions would affect potency.
Pretty sure without surging we'd need a lot of study in order to create anything that can have semi random dosage over a huge irregular group without ODing the vast majority.
You're honestly not sure about that. Dosage would likely vary by person and simply dumping vast quantities of it is likely to lead to a few stopped hearts. More importantly, you don't have what you'd need to make anything relevant. You might be able to buy them somewhere relatively close by, but although you know what the original plants look like, you don't know where they grow. You also don't know how the extra-fresh versions would affect potency.
Alivaril's good about figuring out what we mean. The issue here is that Lorelei cannot communicate to save her life - possibly literally - and her setting knowledge seems to be full of significant errors.
When did I say he wasn't? Remember, he started a whole quest just because he enjoys writing Kyubey. I swear, he has a minor compulsion to deceive, sometimes.
Can other Inspired literally ask the source of their powers for information they have no way of aquiring normally? and get clear information that lets them surpass the methodology of other inspired?
Some might. Someone had to give our parents the idea to keep taking our stuff. We're probably not the first person to have that done to them. And I suspect our Inspiration's cooperative nature is due to that little trick.
Even if it's not, do you really think the majority of Inspirations are actively opposed to their users? Their Inspiration might not be as strong as ours (we are nobility, who probably breed for that), and thus it knows less. I also suspect there are limits on what even our Inspiration is either able or willing to share with us.
Like...if it was that easy, the Quest would just end up being a cake-walk.
You're honestly not sure about that. Dosage would likely vary by person and simply dumping vast quantities of it is likely to lead to a few stopped hearts. More importantly, you don't have what you'd need to make anything relevant. You might be able to buy them somewhere relatively close by, but although you know what the original plants look like, you don't know where they grow. You also don't know how the extra-fresh versions would affect potency.
Dude, the usual dose size of LSD is measured in drops E: micrograms, actually. You sure you ain't thinking of weed? It's therapeutic index is pretty huge, to the point of being nearly impossible to overdose with edibles. It's damn hard to OD on, so long as you're not mainlining massive amounts of raw THC.
Edit: You know, THC might actually be the next best thing to sedatives, for our purposes.
Can other Inspired literally ask the source of their powers for information they have no way of aquiring normally? and get clear information that lets them surpass the methodology of other inspired?
Dude, the usual dose size of LSD is measured in drops E: micrograms, actually. You sure you ain't thinking of weed? It's therapeutic index is pretty huge, to the point of being nearly impossible to overdose with edibles. It's damn hard to OD on, so long as you're not mainlining massive amounts of raw THC.
Therapeutic index is the ratio between a toxic dose and a dose with therapeutic effects. LSD begins having an effect down around 25ug and there are, as far as I can tell, no recorded instances of it having caused deaths, even when people snort pure LSD crystals thinking it's cocaine and get 40mg, thousands of times the detectable minimum dose and hundreds of times the usual recreational dose (8 cases known). The LD50 estimated from animal models is at least twice again that level of overdose. It also has a very convenient oral route. LSD is pretty much the only drug I know of that you basically cannot overdose on and it's very conveniently super-debilitating.
Therapeutic index is the ratio between a toxic dose and a dose with therapeutic effects. LSD begins having an effect down around 25ug and there are, as far as I can tell, no recorded instances of it having caused deaths, even when people snort pure LSD crystals thinking it's cocaine and get 40mg, thousands of times the detectable minimum dose and hundreds of times the usual recreational dose (8 cases known). The LD50 estimated from animal models is at least twice again that level of overdose. It also has a very convenient oral route. LSD is pretty much the only drug I know of that you basically cannot overdose on and it's very conveniently super-debilitating.
Not quite. Overdose has been recorded at 1000-7000 micrograms, or about 10-70mg (assuming I converted right) E:1-7mgs, was off by a factor of ten, and it was the levels in their blood, per 100 ml. It's not lethal at that level, but it does apparently impair respiratory function enough that intubation is potentially useful. It's thus not hard to imagine that a full gram would probably kill you. It's just that getting your hands on a gram of LSD isn't easy, nor is it something anyone would intentionally consume. Unless you're Mr. Popo from DBZ Abridged, and drop a literal gallon of acid.
And, while LSD is usually at least somewhat debilitating, it usually takes about 20-30 minutes to kick in, and several hours to hit it's peak. Also, a bad trip could lead to an individual harming themselves or others. It's debilitation is also almost exclusively mental, meaning people can walk around and possibly injured themselves while under it's effects. Overall, it's not as ideal as it seems.
...Thank you, yes, that's right. Mental math this late at night is hard, but I'm too lazy to break out a calculator right now. Also, I don't work with metric as much as I would like.
Edit: It should be noted that the people Vebyast referenced, who confused LSD for cocaine (somehow)? Yeah, they had to go the hospital, and very well could have died, had they not.
Edit 2: Wait...that was their serum levels. 7 milligrams per 100 ml of blood. So, yeah, same guys.
[x] Abduct a scout-warclock pair.
-[x] Take the scout first. Open a portal behind them, bag their head to keep them quiet and disoriented, get Skybreaker around their neck, and pull them back through while choking them out and letting Skybreaker bite. Close the portal as soon as the scout is on your side.
-[x] Once the scout is out, open up another portal and take the warclock.
-[x] Retreat to a distance to avoid other scouts. Try to avoid leaving tracks that suggest portal shenanigans; no suddenly-cut-off drag marks, for one. Doing this on rocks would be a bonus.
Although your aim with Skybreaker isn't quite as good as you thought it was, it's still more than enough to get you close to the scout. Six steps isn't too much when they're as blatantly incompetent as these idiots. You're starting to suspect these mercenaries might be the dregs of their trade. Maybe they were on the losing side of a war between Inspired? Desperation can drive people to some pretty stupid things and you can't think of anything dumber than deliberately joining wars between Inspired as a powerless uninspired.
Disabling the scout is both easier and quieter than you'd expected; he doesn't even scream, although it does take a few seconds for him to stop struggling. Honestly, the scout is much weaker than you'd expected, even if he is around your own age. The slumped bronze Warclock doesn't seem to care about the attack on its handler and simply follows after you.
The trio of loud screams from the other side of the forest also helps quite a bit. Honestly, you're a little unnerved by the timing. Days without any such sounds followed by three right when you move to attack someone? They truly do scream of interference. Still, you're not going to complain if someone decided to either help you or take advantage of your presence. Either they're friendly and you don't need to know about them or they're hostile and you can't do anything about them anyway. Because your paranoia really needed more fuel. Hooray.
Still, going through an extra travel-portal will probably keep you safe from any maybe-friends-maybe-hostiles either way. The Warclock seems to have a small amount of trouble navigating the rift, but it's able to go through without too much trouble.
You use some of your spare clothes as improvised bindings and make a mental note to pick up better rope in the next town. You rejected it last time due to excessive weight, but maybe you can find something better without too much work?
-[x] Maintain anonymity.
--[x] Quickly fabricate a voice-changer from the warclock's corpse. No surge.
--[x] Keep the bag over the scout's head and stay behind him so you don't have to worry about your appearance.
-[x] Standard questions: Who, what, when, where, why.
-[x] Specific:
--[x] They're mercenaries, right? Short description of the company and its history.
--[x] What was up with that battle?
--[x] What is their current goal?
--[x] Anything he has about the strength, specialties, and gear of the Inspired.
Material resonance.
Stealing the iron remote from your prisoner was remarkably easy, him being unconscious and all. A single "Shutdown" order was enough to render it completely inert while you methodically dismantled the Warclock and organized your newfound loot.
The voice reception mechanism is quickly repurposed as the core of your voice changer. You need a bit of help from Inspiration to actually create something capable of properly distorting your voice, but even that is relatively easy. The whole thing will tear itself apart in a matter of hours if you haven't dismantled it by then. You intend to.
Once you're reasonably confident your creation is safe, you fit the clockwork mask over the lower half of your face and whisper into it.
"Test one, two, three, four, five."
Your voice is significantly higher than you'd prefer it to be. Assuming the scout is even remotely intelligent, he should be able to figure out it's artificial. At least there will be no way of telling what it started as.
Good enough.
The longest part proves to be waiting for your prisoner to wake up. About fifteen minutes after you first forced him into unconsciousness, the scout wakes up with a visible jolt. You nudge him with one foot.
"I have questions. If you answer them truthfully, I will return your freedom and let you live. Understand?"
If anything, the scout relaxes when he hears your voice. You're not sure what to make of that.
"Perfectly. I'm just a scout, not an officer, but I'll do my best. Whad'ya need?"
"Assuming you are mercenaries, company history?"
A muffled bark of a laugh is your prompt response.
"God only knows how many companies they hired, Sir. I'm not among their number; I just had too many drinks and agreed to something I'm regretting. I can tell you two lunatic Inspired hired us to settle their pissing match. Something about making the best use of limited resources, which somehow led to us killing others one day and marching next to them the next."
There's a slight pause before the scout hastily adds "Sir."
"Why the change in diplomatic relations?"
"Another Inspired, Sir. A girl, even. She showed up in the middle of their biggest battle so far, one actually worthy of being called such instead of all these bloody skirmishes, and supposedly started singing about limitations set down by gods and how she intended to cheerfully ignore them."
While that isn't quite the impression you were hoping to deliver with your performance, it's better than you'd expected.
"You weren't there?"
"Nossir. A couple other blokes and I were busy setting fire to the then-enemy coal stocks. Credit where it's due, the shirt in charge refused to admit who he'd sent even in the face of a pissed Inspired. Sure, it was a League one and they're supposed to be a lot more relaxed, but — my apologies, Sir, the mind wandered. What else would you like to know, Sir?"
"What's your current goal?"
"Escort the Inspired back home and get paid. The one with the shambling Warclocks conceded whatever they were fighting over, Sir. Said their bickering is foolish when there are bigger wolves lurking by the borders. Or did you want to know what I'm going to do, Sir?"
Don't be foolish.
"Not particularly. What of the Inspired themselves? What can you tell me about them?"
"Little, Sir. The Inspired who 'won' is supposed to be good at securing manmade structures against anything polite enough to announce its presence. His opponent is better at improving existing tools — water filters, mining equipment, factory machines, beer kegs, you name it. Both are supposed to be pretty strong, Sir, but I'm not too impressed. They seem to spend most of their time building..."
The scout hesitates and tilts his head slightly forward.
"...May I call it 'junk,' Sir? Don't get me wrong, I can't make head nor tails of all the gears and such, but I've seen a strong Inspired. I even got conscripted to fight for one, Sir. He had a cannon that shot short-lived snakes of pure fire, ones that burned whole lines of men at a time. The best these guys have just makes a really big 'boom,' Sir. They do have a lot of stuff like that, sure, but if they're just gonna build better versions of what normal people can make, why did they get to become Inspired at all?"
A pang of sympathy cheerfully backstabs you. While this particular uninspired isn't trying to uncover new knowledge for humanity, he does seem to have better taste than the genuine Inspired nearby. That honestly doesn't seem at all fair to you.
Well?
Inspiration's only input is a flash either shame or regret. You're not sure which.
[] Continue to speak with the scout.
-[] Ask for his name. He's been too helpful for you to continue thinking of him as 'the scout' or 'your prisoner.'
-[] What would he make if he had the chance?
-[] Tell him your original Inspiration was caused by a lightning rod, the invention of an uninspired. They can tame the heavens if they put their minds to it.
-[] Relay anything Inspiration wishes to convey.
-[] Write-in more questions
[] Shock the scout into unconsciousness again, retrieve your belongings, and continue on your way.
-[] Return him near the road, close to where the army will be by the time he awakens. You don't have any adequate reason to abandon him in the middle of nowhere.
-[] Head further into the League.
--[] On your way, experimentally ask for your assistants to reveal themselves. Coincidence? You think not.
[] Write-in
Attempting to manually force Inspiration in someone is widely considered to be a waste of time. Some have even theorized that trying to do so decreases the chances of anyone so helped, although you don't believe that. Noble parents successfully induce the correct mindset all the time.
Please provide even a little reasoning (not as part of the [X]'d IC vote itself) for why you vote a specific way, even if it's just a sentence or two. What you're hoping to accomplish by voting that way, why it seems like a good idea, something else along those lines. Your vote will not be counted otherwise.
[] Continue to speak with the scout.
-[] Ask for his name. He's been too helpful for you to continue thinking of him as 'the scout' or 'your prisoner.'
-[] What would he make if he had the chance?
-[] Tell him your original Inspiration was caused by a lightning rod, the invention of an uninspired. They can tame the heavens if they put their minds to it.
I like all these. He seems nice enough.
I wonder if the scout was so relieved because us not letting him see our face or hear our real voice was a strong indication to him that we really would let him live afterwards.
[] Continue to speak with the scout.
-[] Ask for his name. He's been too helpful for you to continue thinking of him as 'the scout' or 'your prisoner.'
-[] What would he make if he had the chance?
-[] Tell him your original Inspiration was caused by a lightning rod, the invention of an uninspired. They can tame the heavens if they put their minds to it.
-[] Relay anything Inspiration wishes to convey.
-[] Write-in more questions
So this is definitely an attempt to Inspire the scout. Interesting; I'd for some reason assumed it was some biological or magical thing, not something you could introduce with the right state of mind.
I... kind of got that impression. He's staying cool and clearly has practice interacting with people with catastrophically unpredictable personalities, both indicating a history of being around Inspired, and he's good enough, relative to the rest of the army, to be selected for what's essentially a spec-ops raid. But I don't get the impression that Lorelei is interested in having a minion, I don't know if Inspired benefit from minions the way Sparks and other mad scientists often do, and I don't know how hard it is to find the "knows how to not get killed by a pissed-off Inspired" skill-set.
"Escort the Inspired back home and get paid. The one with the shambling Warclocks conceded whatever they were fighting over, Sir. Said their bickering is foolish when there are bigger wolves lurking by the borders. Or did you want to know what I'm going to do, Sir?"
The trio of loud screams from the other side of the forest also helps quite a bit. Honestly, you're a little unnerved by the timing. Days without any such sounds followed by three right when you move to attack someone? They truly do scream of interference. Still, you're not going to complain if someone decided to either help you or take advantage of your presence. Either they're friendly and you don't need to know about them or they're hostile and you can't do anything about them anyway. Because your paranoia really needed more fuel. Hooray.
This is concerning. Whoever's doing this is sufficiently confident in themselves that they can risk drawing a significant amount of attention. Three screams also means they hit a rather larger group than we did, and did so quickly enough and hard enough to prompt inarticulate screaming instead of "we're under attack". They're also observing us from a distance, and can predict what we're doing well enough to act in synchrony to assist us with long-term goals.
[X] Low-key rant. Blow off some steam.
-[X] Because if they didn't, the Uninspired might end up working out how to make better stuff, and the real Inspired might have the space to meaningfully better the world. Can't have that. Instead you just get worthless petty warlords who waste everyone's time and lives but close ranks at any sign of trouble.
--[X] Their "inventions" aren't even useful. Who came up with lightning rods? Uninspired. Who came up with blankets? Uninspired. Who came up with clocks? Real Inspired. Who came up with the idea of using people as footsoldiers alongside warclocks? Not even empowered. Just people. Pointless fucking slaughter.
-[X] Why did they get to be Inspired? Because the world is a shitty place like that.
[X] Clear your throat. Did either Inspired have an actual base out here? Or were they just camping?
[X] Also, any knowledge of the general "map" would be nice. Where's the Southern border and what does it push up against?
Right. Now then, business. Having confirmed that these are the Inspired, and having formulated some basic plans, I do rather think this is an excellent opportunity to get another Surge going. Barring acquisition of further gear it's not really going to get better than this. So, here's what we're going to do...
Essentially, the first component will be a regular portal going from the road to the sky. Not too hard to imagine, just, we'll plop a portal on the road as big as we can make it, between the clocks and the goons with the portal facing the clocks. The other end goes a kilometer or two above us, facing down.
Then we put a void portal about 10m below the sky portal, facing the sky portal. This will rapidly vacuum stuff through the road portal and into the sky.
We lay a few portals around the void portal, facing inwards, towards the void portal. These function much as a sewer grate might -- clocks are pulled through the sky portal, bounce off the grate portals and fall a couple kilometers straight down to smash apart into nice scrap.
Meanwhile, the road portal, being impermeable from behind, functions as a bullet shield while we cackle madly behind it.
We may also need to pop down a portal over our heads as an umbrella, so to speak. Furthermore getting the angles right on the grate portals will require us to make a few transit portals so we can lay them from the necessary positions.
That said, this provides us with a safe method of scaring the bejeezus out of the normies so that we can surge while simultaneously scrapping all the stuff that we can't scare.
If the Inspired decide to fight back-- we space them. Or, perhaps not even, since we'll be surging and they... Won't.
There are a couple other options. We could try to bribe the mercs. That would kick the Inspired out of the equation and we could just kind of build, no need to scrap the clocks. We might not even need money for very long afterwards, depending on what happens.
Anyway, based on what's present I'm figuring we want to gun for armor, here. A nice, bulletproof suit of mobile armor with enough space to add lots of fluffy padding so we can nap in it if we feel like it. I don't think we can make liftoff with these shitty clocks... And we don't have anything worth making additions to, so a materials hauler is currently pointless. We could do a crawler, but it wpuld be less mobile than armor -- we couldn't take it into enclosed spaces, e.g.
Our main problem is that we really want to stay away from the League's main cities, but there isn't likely to be anything of real value in the League's countryside, and we still need another couple builds before we can get places, probably. Worse yet we still need food and water... Unless we're being smart and carrying them on our horse. We're totally doing that, arent we. That solves so many problems.
So, we still want to get back into the feudal patchwork but that requires -- oh. I'm stupid. With a portable bed and rations we can just ditch and skybreak our way back east past the various danger zones...? Maybe...
There are a couple other options. We could try to bribe the mercs. That would kick the Inspired out of the equation and we could just kind of build, no need to scrap the clocks. We might not even need money for very long afterwards, depending on what happens.
You sincerely doubt you have the funds to pay around two thousand people enough for them to look the other way. (Modern equivalent of your current funds: Approximately 200,000 USD)
Worse yet we still need food and water... Unless we're being smart and carrying them on our horse. We're totally doing that, arent we. That solves so many problems.
You are. Water is significantly heavier, so you'll need to refill at a source of fresh water every five days or so, but you have enough dry rations to last you a month or so without any sort of resupply. You might be a tad tired and vulnerable to disease by then, but you'll be alive.
You sincerely doubt you have the funds to pay around two thousand people enough for them to look the other way. (Modern equivalent of your current funds: Approximately 200,000 USD)
We wouldn't be bribing them with money. "I have what is likely to be the most powerful Inspiration on the face of the planet and I am not planning to use it for two-bit tricks like these fools. What do you want built?"
We wouldn't be bribing them with money. "I have what is likely to be the most powerful Inspiration on the face of the planet and I am not planning to use it for two-bit tricks like these fools. What do you want built?"
