Did I not just advocate for exactly this?
Consumption
- Thread starter Alivaril
- Start date
- Original
ImperatorV
The Laughing One
- Location
- The Voyaging Realm
Something I just thought of: the prisoner has some rather severe security measures - this could indicate she is a powerful mage who might know something about our worldhopping powers. The Dragon, if it's one of those dragons that are basically archmages in addition to giant flying lizards, could also potentially help us with that.
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I really thought more people would go for the glade. Does it not seem perfect for our talent? As well as letting our little buddies get a boost we could also pick up more. It's already been made clear we wouldn't stay long and elementals love us. What's the worst that could happen?
There's no way of judging the prisoner or the dragon beforehand unfortunately. Either could be good or could be very bad. With the prisoner at least we have some control over the situation, so long as the captor doesn't return.
The glade is a very tempting shiny.
The glade is a very tempting shiny.
Script Mak3r
(Verified Sun God) (Verified Feathers)
- Location
- Hell of Blazing Fires
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I'm going to be honest, if I have a choice between adventuring in a new, randomly chosen place, versus adventuring in a place where the only magic-user we know is massively skeptical that we even exist as the type of person we claim to be, and where the only law enforcement officer we know is nominally anti-magic AND shady as hell... I'm going to choose a new randomly chosen adventure.
I like this point, it's a good one. However, dragons are iffy- they're very powerful, and of the sample of self-aware dragons I know of in fiction, many are opposed to intrusions and chronically suspicious. I'd rather deal with something else.
EDIT:
Between the dragon and the wizard I'd kind of rather deal with the wizard. She's obviously imprisoned very thoroughly, which suggests long term confinement, which suggests that her captors aren't in a position to check up on her immediately. You don't need to do the equivalent of keeping your prisoner strapped to a gurney with a gag in their mouth unless you need them very thoroughly restrained, and extremely thorough restraint means they're either very dangerous, or you need to leave them unmonitored for a long time.
Though that could be wishful thinking.
Even so... As noted the wizard has reasons to be grateful if we help her out of her imprisonment. She appears to be a humanoid being of some kind (a fantasy elf, a human who's used magic to 'improve' her appearance, et cetera), so humanoid psychology seems likely, even if far from certain. That means we can probably win her over as an ally/teacher. By contrast, the dragon has no reason to help us other than the kindness of its heart, not a trait dragons are consistently known for.
I'm sure terrible things could happen, because something made those bloodstains. BUT... the nice thing about it is, it's a place where we can bolster our defenses with already-powerful elementals. That's a good thing and I approve of it.
A glade full of elementals seems like a much easier and lower-risk way to attain this goal than a big pool of blood with a singing voice. Even if the elementals haven't specifically befriended us, they are likely to protect us from harm or at least discourage anyone outside the glade from trying to harm us until we have a chance to talk things out.
EDIT:
By contrast I'm rather suspicious about the city, among other things because I'm not sure we can stop those monsters if one of them comes after us.
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
I guess I read your vote very differently than you'd intended it, then, or you expected different results out of it than I did.
I'd have liked to find out a bit more about the setting before leaving.
Ha, all those options except for maybe the library are ominous. How many universes/dimensions are there going to be, anyway?
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
So my priorities are...
[1] A magical glade.
[Elementals like us, there's a whole bunch of them here, we're relatively likely to be safe and to be able to make strong friend/ally/minions!]
[2] A marble prison.
[Humanoid being we can do a huge favor for, and who is likely to be able to help us as a guide/teacher. If she's imprisoned this tightly, it's probably because she has immediate means of escape IF she breaks loose from the magical confinement and bondage she's in]
[3] A library.
[Libraries are cool, and in this case nonthreatening.]
[4] A dragon's hoard.
[The dragon's lair is cool, and PROBABLY a safe place to be, but I'd rather deal with entities I know we can befriend, and/or places that don't have giant creatures capable of killing us instantly just by exhaling on us]
[5] A strange city.
[There are monsters and no obvious sign of resources immediately useful to us. It's a high-magic city with streets that look like 20th century Earth (black pavement, white squares are probably sidewalks), but again, monsters and nothing specifically useful to us other than the ambient mana. High risk of outside context problems Melia doesn't understand.]
[1] A magical glade.
[Elementals like us, there's a whole bunch of them here, we're relatively likely to be safe and to be able to make strong friend/ally/minions!]
[2] A marble prison.
[Humanoid being we can do a huge favor for, and who is likely to be able to help us as a guide/teacher. If she's imprisoned this tightly, it's probably because she has immediate means of escape IF she breaks loose from the magical confinement and bondage she's in]
[3] A library.
[Libraries are cool, and in this case nonthreatening.]
[4] A dragon's hoard.
[The dragon's lair is cool, and PROBABLY a safe place to be, but I'd rather deal with entities I know we can befriend, and/or places that don't have giant creatures capable of killing us instantly just by exhaling on us]
[5] A strange city.
[There are monsters and no obvious sign of resources immediately useful to us. It's a high-magic city with streets that look like 20th century Earth (black pavement, white squares are probably sidewalks), but again, monsters and nothing specifically useful to us other than the ambient mana. High risk of outside context problems Melia doesn't understand.]
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, bloodstains imply dried blood. This still looks wet and shiny.
Different options in the same vote often aren't on the same world. You do not currently have any way to identify which specific dimension a window is looking out on. So, you have no idea.
Here's our modern world. Concrete sidewalks and balconies, asphalt roads, factory and car exhaust smoke. Maybe 50s era. The only problem is it seems to be ruled by people who police it with monsters.
e: what Vebyast said
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Late industrial city, WWI-WWII tech level. Asphalt road and concrete sidewalk, modern-ish building cladding (concrete, etc), but coal power and a lot of it.
edit:
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Another thought I just had:
The imprisoned sorceress- I'm pretty sure those ants nibbling away at one of the magical imprisonment crystal-battery-things are NOT a natural phenomenon, and were either summoned by her somehow or sent to help her (subtly) by an outside ally. Either way, though... they're certainly a very slow process. If her prison were being watched closely by anyone even vaguely competent, they would have done something to deter the ants from eating the crystals that power the containment dome.
This means we probably have time to appear, figure out what's going on in more detail, and react accordingly (e.g. free her or run for it).
Also, it's entirely possible that we may end up getting to portal to different locations in the same dimension. I mean, for all we know, the wintry place with a magical battle, the pool of blood, and the sorceress tied up in a dungeon are all in the same dimension, just a few hundred miles apart...
The imprisoned sorceress- I'm pretty sure those ants nibbling away at one of the magical imprisonment crystal-battery-things are NOT a natural phenomenon, and were either summoned by her somehow or sent to help her (subtly) by an outside ally. Either way, though... they're certainly a very slow process. If her prison were being watched closely by anyone even vaguely competent, they would have done something to deter the ants from eating the crystals that power the containment dome.
This means we probably have time to appear, figure out what's going on in more detail, and react accordingly (e.g. free her or run for it).
Lots, I bet!
Also, it's entirely possible that we may end up getting to portal to different locations in the same dimension. I mean, for all we know, the wintry place with a magical battle, the pool of blood, and the sorceress tied up in a dungeon are all in the same dimension, just a few hundred miles apart...
True. That said, the elementals don't seem responsible for the bloodshed, based on anything you included in the update itself. If the elementals are not responsible, it is fairly likely they will side with Melia against anything else that could have caused the bloodshed. There are enough of them, and strong enough, that I'm willing to bet on them against most probable threats.
Different options in the same vote often aren't on the same world. You do not currently have any way to identify which specific dimension a window is looking out on. So, you have no idea.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
So Glade is full of elementals that're already under orders - crafting human-size chairs and farming. I imagine that some of the elementals have been ordered to defend the area? Befriending some of these elementals may be counted as theft.
@Alivaril What kind of surface texture do elementals have? If they get crud in them does it stay visible or does it go away? I'm trying to figure out if we'd expect these elementals to be visibly covered in blood if they'd been the ones doing violence.
@Alivaril What kind of surface texture do elementals have? If they get crud in them does it stay visible or does it go away? I'm trying to figure out if we'd expect these elementals to be visibly covered in blood if they'd been the ones doing violence.
Nixeu
Lord of Madness, Harbinger of Llamas
- Location
- Your nightmares.
...Well, at least we don't seem to have to train our harder golems as to what to target. Jeez.
While we might have handled Mr. Mask more gently (I'm starting to suspect he might have been either a new recruit who knows Vanessa, or an infiltrator for some sort), apparently we would have had to have swarmed him to get him to be straight with us.
Even if we bicker about the options again?
And if we had it as an option last time, I would have chosen it over the pool. Please don't compare things where we had completely different sets of choices. Literally all of these have some description of shiny that seems worth going for. Like, all of these are comparable in value to the pool, IMO. When there's that much disparity between them, it's not a fair comparison. At all.
Also, word of advice: be careful with stuff that could be considered reviving a dead argument. That's exactly the sort of thing I least want to happen when debating the merits of stuff like this.
As for these options...*begins drooling profusely*
All of these are awesome. The glade of elementals could be pretty freaking awesome, and a nice power boost. The city has some obvious danger, while also potentially offering modern tech. And the library...is probably full of books on magic, which could be incredibly helpful.
The dragon and the prison both have potential for contact with powerful creatures. The prison's a mix of being safer, but with more variables, since I doubt there's many people lurking around a dragon's den. Prison might have some guards, but they've apparently missed the ants disassembling the crystals, so...
...Gods, I don't even know what to vote for. Like, at all. Um. I guess...?
[1] A magical glade.
[2] A library.
[3] A marble prison.
[4] A dragon's hoard.
[5] A strange city
If we're not going for the nearly certain power boost of the elementals, I'd go with the guaranteed source of knowledge, over the more risky ventures.
...Which was that first one? I don't remember that.
[1] A marble prison.
[5] A strange city.
[2] A magical glade.
[4] A library.
[3] A dragon's hoard.
I want to talk to the elf lady. It would be nice to actually have a situation under control for once. As for the rest, everything bears some obvious risk, so there's really no great safe choice that's also interesting. Whoever the masters of the elementals are we'll have to befriend them, or else bad things. Whoever the captor of the lady is or whoever she is, we'll have to figure out who is bad and avoid them. We'll have to be interesting enough to befriend the dragon rather than being killed. We'll have to find someone friendly in the city to explain what's going on to us. Only the library is "safe" and even then we don't know whose library it is.
e: It's an excellent point about the ants not being noticed.
[5] A strange city.
[2] A magical glade.
[4] A library.
[3] A dragon's hoard.
I want to talk to the elf lady. It would be nice to actually have a situation under control for once. As for the rest, everything bears some obvious risk, so there's really no great safe choice that's also interesting. Whoever the masters of the elementals are we'll have to befriend them, or else bad things. Whoever the captor of the lady is or whoever she is, we'll have to figure out who is bad and avoid them. We'll have to be interesting enough to befriend the dragon rather than being killed. We'll have to find someone friendly in the city to explain what's going on to us. Only the library is "safe" and even then we don't know whose library it is.
e: It's an excellent point about the ants not being noticed.
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Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Elf lady is almost certainly a powerful spellcaster. The description of spells so far makes me think that they have strong somatic components, drawing lines of mana in the air with your fingers, and that setup sounds like exactly what you'd do to keep someone from drawing in the air with their fingers.
- Location
- A single human dimension
- Pronouns
- She/Her
How they feel when touched varies by elemental type and is identical to their component element. However, elementals themselves don't have anything stick to or inside them; they're made solely of their element and nothing else. If a stone elemental climbs out of a mud puddle, the mud will just ooze right off it. You've sometimes wondered where their consumed food* goes; you've never see any pieces floating inside air or water elementals, and not for lack of careful watching.
*They don't need to eat, but the only elemental you know of that doesn't like sweets are fire elementals. They seem to prefer having objects which produce sweet scents when burned.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yes, even if. My point is just that almost any random world that isn't exceptionally likely to try to kill us shortly after entry is going to be more fun than dealing with secretive wizards and an anti-magical secret police force, even a surprisingly nice one that hires weaklings who don't think to wear a cup when running around accosting people by jumping out of alleyways.
STOP.
You are badly misunderstanding. My point is that some damn good points were made during that argument. Points that I respect, and am now bearing in mind. I am now hoping to find a different way to achieve a laudable goal, a goal that motivated some of the people who voted for the pool of blood. This is not me being salty. This is me acknowledging that the people on the other side of the argument from me had good reasons to want what they wanted, and those reasons should influence my decision-making process.
If I were interested primarily in playing it safe, for instance, I would probably have flipped the library and the glade in my voting choices. But precisely because the argument that we need stronger elementals to protect us is important and valuable, I'm doing it the other way around. Because while there is risk in the glade dimension, I feel it is manageable risk and we're fairly likely to have tools at hand to keep the risk from getting out of control.
A word of advice in return: please recognize that at least some of the people you cross rhetorical swords with are willing to recognize that you make good arguments. And to respect your opinions. And they may want to make a shout-out to your good arguments from a past debate in an attempt to show respect for you when they go on to make a decision motivated by the very arguments you made to them earlier.
Please don't panic when I do that, okay?
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Another point: if elf lady is not cartoonishly evil then even if she's bad or in the wrong in some way, she might actually be thankful to be released. And having someone in our debt when our resources amount to very little isn't a bad thing. So I'm quite happy to put the marble prison as my #1 choice.
e: upon reread, her prison is open to the outside, and Melia thinks she might be a magical creature, so not without risk I suppose
e: upon reread, her prison is open to the outside, and Melia thinks she might be a magical creature, so not without risk I suppose
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
[1] A marble prison
[2] A magical glade
[3] A library
[4] A dragon's hoard
[5] A strange city
[2] A magical glade
[3] A library
[4] A dragon's hoard
[5] A strange city
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I would like to argue that the glade should be rated highly, #2 if not #1, because it provides us immediate, direct access to elementals and we know we can rapidly recruit elementals to help us (as the light elemental here shows us). We may want something else more than that, but that is a really, really great thing to have. Moreover, the elementals may be useful as something we can recruit if we are attacked, whereas in any of the other dimensions we have no protection except the (relatively less strong) elementals we already have.
Don't get me wrong, the prison and library and even the hoard and city all have good points for them. I'm not arguing against them, I am only arguing for the glade.
Don't get me wrong, the prison and library and even the hoard and city all have good points for them. I'm not arguing against them, I am only arguing for the glade.
I'm still amused that we straight up stole someone's light elemental.