Dark Lord Accidental Lieutenant Quest
- Thread starter Academia Nut
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
[X] Mention your abilities
Beginner soul surgery
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You consider what to say for a long moment before you haltingly say, "The demon, the one that was bound within me, it was... it was some sort of beguiler. It could alter people's minds and memories and emotions, and at its worst it could cut away pieces of soul to eat. Some of that has remained within me, I don't know how much help, but maybe...?"
Nathaniel blinks at this and the consideration he gives it is rather deep, before he shakes his head sadly and says, "While I know of such powers I have never even attempted to have them used on me or my crew for lack of trust of those that could do it. While not exactly tempting, it is certainly interesting..."
Upon further thought the captain barks out, "Someone find me Marcus and have him brought here!"
Looking at Dagwood, he says, "Marcus is... well, the soul binding process is imperfect, and every time a body is destroyed it causes trauma. We rotate duties and multiple souls are attached to each body these days to ease the strain, but in the early days we didn't really understand what was happening. Marcus was too fierce in his loyalty and came back too often, until one day he just... broke. Perhaps you can have a look at him?"
You gulp but nod and say, "I don't know if I can do anything, but I'll take a look."
The sailors haul forward a limp, shrivelled up man who looks to be made from a small bush, his body is so consumed by the curse. Swallowing down your fear, you open up your supernatural senses to peer at the man, and what you find is at once both disgusting and fascinating. While the same bindings as upon the other crew, the ship, and Dagwood are also present, his mind is like a diseased mass of black coral, with unsightly lumps of confused emotion and painful memories growing upon and consuming each other. Somewhat interestingly, you don't think that you can really do significant damage to his mind and soul as the binding magic shields many of the core elements. Emptying your magical reserves, you form a knife in your mind and apply it to the most distant element of the cancerous growths, attempting to cut it away.
the bullet shattered the arm
The sudden bolt of memory that erupts from the process nearly causes you to fumble what you are doing, but the memory is so fragmented and the emotional context to it so blunted that it is hard to truly feel it. You take it that was among poor Marcus' last 'deaths', by that point the degeneration having left him simple and numb to it all. Still, as you go over the pieces of the memory, you find your own mind processing it into something more real and more unpleasant. Clamping down with your mind, you crush the unpleasantness, grinding it away until it is just energy circulating within you. That memory and the emotions attached to it weren't things either of you should hang onto. You feel your energy reserves replenish somewhat, but not entirely and the mental knife you formed is fading away. Deciding to make the most of it, you scrape away more of those unpleasant, tumorous things and grind them away.
Your mental construct dissolves before you have refilled your reserves, and you slump over once you turn your attention back to the outside world, a small headache pressing against your forehead from the inside, but you look at the expectant crew and say, "I think I made it a little better. Going to need more time at it though before he might show some improvement, this is exhausting."
Dagwood assesses his insensate crewman before he says, "I'll keep an eye on you, make sure you're not hurting poor Marcus, but you have little else to do and he can contribute little, so have at him then."
You nod at that, and spend the rest of the day cutting and scraping at his soul, an exceedingly difficult task that soon brings with it considerable pain as the agony of his condition and deaths starts to become clearer. While the outer surface of his soul is naught but bleakness and apathy towards his many deaths and long suffering as a bound soul, once you have dismantled that outer husk you start encountering more complex memories and emotions, things that require care and attention. For a moment you consider just cutting and ripping these out too, because handling them properly is the mental equivalent of reaching into an oil tangle of thorny vines, hauling some out to disentangle a few strands, then only once they are straight do you actual flense away the thorns. It's slow and painful, but you realize that you owe it to this man to do it properly. Your life was ruined because of the malicious indifference to your suffering, you're not going to pass it along.
By the time you find yourself resting a hammock, belly somewhat more full from the fish and hardtack that Nathaniel carried in case of 'guests' you are exhausted and feel like you have died a dozen times, but the fact that Marcus is now actually able to stand under his own power and can walk if guided by another is celebrated among the crew, and Dagwood seems immensely pleased.
Swinging from a hammock near yours and doing some remarkably intricate scrimshaw work, Az asks you, "Busy day?"
You let out a pained moan for a moment before you manage to gather the effort to say properly, "Yes."
"Good, glad to see that you're keeping busy," Az says. Musing to himself, "I am fascinated by the cannons. Remarkable weapons, wish I had their like back in my day, would have made sieges so much easier."
You consider asking more but decide that you don't particularly care to know. The legends tell of the First Emperor sacking and obliterating many great cities in his day and you aren't particularly interested in either the details or his plans for the future. For a moment you feel bad for helping to introduce him to cannon, but then you figure that he would have found out eventually anyway.
"So, how far are you going to take this project of yours?" Az asks, curious.
You are silent for a time, both thinking and marshalling the energy to think and speak. Az seems content to let you remain silent. You should probably at least get Marcus functional again, which you think is entirely within your capacity, but you also feel like it was getting a bit easier as you went along, even as the process got more complicated. You are better able to understand the patterns at play, and there are certain things that repeat and thus you can use the same methods without having to tackle the problem from scratch. You're also finding more tricks as you go along, like how to splice tangled memories into a more coherent whole, which then seems to allow the mind to heal on its own. Thus far those sorts of actions were rare with Marcus, but you can feel that as you go deeper they will become more common, even as the complexity of the task rises.
And, if you can really fix Marcus, you can probably also start working on the rest of the crew, who you're now really starting to understand didn't deserve any of this as they were pretty much all victims of something the Juntlunders did, although obviously they were also all at least somewhat complicit in perpetuating their pain upon others. Removing the surface damage of the more damaged but functional crew should be relatively easy if exhausting, but there was the distinct possibility that you could really work at things and undo the profound damage you could feel all around you. Also, now that you think about it, about the only being you know of who could possibly restrain Az was Dagwood, who would probably feel a profound debt towards you for helping his crew, and see you as an asset towards his salvation in your own right rather than just an associate of Az. The only problem being that aside from definitely being exhausting, the process would take weeks if not months, and Dagwood promised to get a ship for Az before then, which could lead to complications.
Level of commitment...
[] Get Marcus functional
[] Fix Marcus to the best of your ability
[] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
[] Go over the entire crew as best you can
Nathaniel blinks at this and the consideration he gives it is rather deep, before he shakes his head sadly and says, "While I know of such powers I have never even attempted to have them used on me or my crew for lack of trust of those that could do it. While not exactly tempting, it is certainly interesting..."
Upon further thought the captain barks out, "Someone find me Marcus and have him brought here!"
Looking at Dagwood, he says, "Marcus is... well, the soul binding process is imperfect, and every time a body is destroyed it causes trauma. We rotate duties and multiple souls are attached to each body these days to ease the strain, but in the early days we didn't really understand what was happening. Marcus was too fierce in his loyalty and came back too often, until one day he just... broke. Perhaps you can have a look at him?"
You gulp but nod and say, "I don't know if I can do anything, but I'll take a look."
The sailors haul forward a limp, shrivelled up man who looks to be made from a small bush, his body is so consumed by the curse. Swallowing down your fear, you open up your supernatural senses to peer at the man, and what you find is at once both disgusting and fascinating. While the same bindings as upon the other crew, the ship, and Dagwood are also present, his mind is like a diseased mass of black coral, with unsightly lumps of confused emotion and painful memories growing upon and consuming each other. Somewhat interestingly, you don't think that you can really do significant damage to his mind and soul as the binding magic shields many of the core elements. Emptying your magical reserves, you form a knife in your mind and apply it to the most distant element of the cancerous growths, attempting to cut it away.
the bullet shattered the arm
The sudden bolt of memory that erupts from the process nearly causes you to fumble what you are doing, but the memory is so fragmented and the emotional context to it so blunted that it is hard to truly feel it. You take it that was among poor Marcus' last 'deaths', by that point the degeneration having left him simple and numb to it all. Still, as you go over the pieces of the memory, you find your own mind processing it into something more real and more unpleasant. Clamping down with your mind, you crush the unpleasantness, grinding it away until it is just energy circulating within you. That memory and the emotions attached to it weren't things either of you should hang onto. You feel your energy reserves replenish somewhat, but not entirely and the mental knife you formed is fading away. Deciding to make the most of it, you scrape away more of those unpleasant, tumorous things and grind them away.
Your mental construct dissolves before you have refilled your reserves, and you slump over once you turn your attention back to the outside world, a small headache pressing against your forehead from the inside, but you look at the expectant crew and say, "I think I made it a little better. Going to need more time at it though before he might show some improvement, this is exhausting."
Dagwood assesses his insensate crewman before he says, "I'll keep an eye on you, make sure you're not hurting poor Marcus, but you have little else to do and he can contribute little, so have at him then."
You nod at that, and spend the rest of the day cutting and scraping at his soul, an exceedingly difficult task that soon brings with it considerable pain as the agony of his condition and deaths starts to become clearer. While the outer surface of his soul is naught but bleakness and apathy towards his many deaths and long suffering as a bound soul, once you have dismantled that outer husk you start encountering more complex memories and emotions, things that require care and attention. For a moment you consider just cutting and ripping these out too, because handling them properly is the mental equivalent of reaching into an oil tangle of thorny vines, hauling some out to disentangle a few strands, then only once they are straight do you actual flense away the thorns. It's slow and painful, but you realize that you owe it to this man to do it properly. Your life was ruined because of the malicious indifference to your suffering, you're not going to pass it along.
By the time you find yourself resting a hammock, belly somewhat more full from the fish and hardtack that Nathaniel carried in case of 'guests' you are exhausted and feel like you have died a dozen times, but the fact that Marcus is now actually able to stand under his own power and can walk if guided by another is celebrated among the crew, and Dagwood seems immensely pleased.
Swinging from a hammock near yours and doing some remarkably intricate scrimshaw work, Az asks you, "Busy day?"
You let out a pained moan for a moment before you manage to gather the effort to say properly, "Yes."
"Good, glad to see that you're keeping busy," Az says. Musing to himself, "I am fascinated by the cannons. Remarkable weapons, wish I had their like back in my day, would have made sieges so much easier."
You consider asking more but decide that you don't particularly care to know. The legends tell of the First Emperor sacking and obliterating many great cities in his day and you aren't particularly interested in either the details or his plans for the future. For a moment you feel bad for helping to introduce him to cannon, but then you figure that he would have found out eventually anyway.
"So, how far are you going to take this project of yours?" Az asks, curious.
You are silent for a time, both thinking and marshalling the energy to think and speak. Az seems content to let you remain silent. You should probably at least get Marcus functional again, which you think is entirely within your capacity, but you also feel like it was getting a bit easier as you went along, even as the process got more complicated. You are better able to understand the patterns at play, and there are certain things that repeat and thus you can use the same methods without having to tackle the problem from scratch. You're also finding more tricks as you go along, like how to splice tangled memories into a more coherent whole, which then seems to allow the mind to heal on its own. Thus far those sorts of actions were rare with Marcus, but you can feel that as you go deeper they will become more common, even as the complexity of the task rises.
And, if you can really fix Marcus, you can probably also start working on the rest of the crew, who you're now really starting to understand didn't deserve any of this as they were pretty much all victims of something the Juntlunders did, although obviously they were also all at least somewhat complicit in perpetuating their pain upon others. Removing the surface damage of the more damaged but functional crew should be relatively easy if exhausting, but there was the distinct possibility that you could really work at things and undo the profound damage you could feel all around you. Also, now that you think about it, about the only being you know of who could possibly restrain Az was Dagwood, who would probably feel a profound debt towards you for helping his crew, and see you as an asset towards his salvation in your own right rather than just an associate of Az. The only problem being that aside from definitely being exhausting, the process would take weeks if not months, and Dagwood promised to get a ship for Az before then, which could lead to complications.
Level of commitment...
[] Get Marcus functional
[] Fix Marcus to the best of your ability
[] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
[] Go over the entire crew as best you can
Aoinfinity
Unlimited Blue Works
- Location
- a blue Infinity
[X] Fix Marcus to the best of your ability
Let's finish what we've started and let's do it well. If, after that, it seems prudent to do the rest, we can always opt to then.
Let's finish what we've started and let's do it well. If, after that, it seems prudent to do the rest, we can always opt to then.
- Location
- Germany
Time to grind our skills,
Would love to help the whole crew, but it clearly takes to long, unless we somehow get Az to stick around
As it is, that doesn't seem like an option, so let's make the best out of this, get Dagwood indebted to us as much as possible on the time limit we have and then continue to stick around with our evil overlord
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
Would love to help the whole crew, but it clearly takes to long, unless we somehow get Az to stick around
As it is, that doesn't seem like an option, so let's make the best out of this, get Dagwood indebted to us as much as possible on the time limit we have and then continue to stick around with our evil overlord
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
- Location
- Germany
you need to remember that this is not the decision of what we want to do, but how much time we want to commit to helping Dagwood and his crew
Therefore since this a decision about our Level of commitment
Fixing Marcus to best the we can is a condition for any of the following option
[] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
[] Go over the entire crew as best you can
PsyFarrow
Verified Necrodancer
- Location
- Space
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
I'd like to completely fix everyone we can, but there's only so many hours in a day. This way, every member of the crew has reason to like us and Dagwood may feel at least partially indebted to the lass who eased his comrade's suffering.
I'd like to completely fix everyone we can, but there's only so many hours in a day. This way, every member of the crew has reason to like us and Dagwood may feel at least partially indebted to the lass who eased his comrade's suffering.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Just as a note, its not that you'd lose track of Az, just that you would be unable to influence much during the capture process and would probably miss out on his initial recruitment drive.
To clarify, this is correct, the vote is along a spectrum.
- Location
- Earth
Good point; I guess I will go and change my vote.
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
Though this might still take a while and maybe even too long.
- Location
- Germany
Ugh no, then I 'd rather stick around with Az, because that option then certainly screams faction creation to me
It would basically be us and Dagwood, who would be in-debted to us and who might feel loyal to us if me do well enough, vs whoever would manage to integrate himself into Az inner circle Az during the recruitment drive and the rest of the recruits
Therefore let's just stick around and hypno-train/charm them to be loyal/in-love/fanatically devout to us
[X] Fix Marcus to the best of your ability
Proving that we can be helpful to Dagwood and his quest is worth doing, actually helping his entire crew probably isn't at this point. Being there for the early recruitment and grand floor work for Az is pretty crucial for keeping our spot in whatever hierarchy he creates. Some day we can come back to Dagwood and fix his guys up and see if we benefit from it, but that day shouldn't be today.
Proving that we can be helpful to Dagwood and his quest is worth doing, actually helping his entire crew probably isn't at this point. Being there for the early recruitment and grand floor work for Az is pretty crucial for keeping our spot in whatever hierarchy he creates. Some day we can come back to Dagwood and fix his guys up and see if we benefit from it, but that day shouldn't be today.
- Location
- Germany
Nah, from what Camilla says it shoudn't take long, just be fairly exhausting, which is AN's way of saying, choosing this means we won't get to do anything else, while we do this
Which is fine with me, since the only other options are mediating in a setting that makes Camilla incredible uncomfortable our interacting with Az, who might be more favorable to us if we would spend time futhering or skills and his cause than he would be if we would just hang out with him and bother him
Heck he might actually ask us then questions which we actually can't answer, which in turn would lower our usefulness in his eyes and might make things more uncomfortable for us down the road
Better just go and further our skills at every oppurtunity we have and make ourselves so more useful to him in the long run, thus worth keeping around and more importantly, worth keeping alive
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- Location
- Little Rock, AR
Hn.
Play psychic soul surgeon is will probably be the best and most unobjectionable project we will ever have with the regards to mastering the ways of the mind expanding our reserves, and having things to eat.
Short of finding a sanotorium that is.
It might also help our piece our own head together.
Also much debt.
[x] Go over the entire crew as best you can
Play psychic soul surgeon is will probably be the best and most unobjectionable project we will ever have with the regards to mastering the ways of the mind expanding our reserves, and having things to eat.
Short of finding a sanotorium that is.
It might also help our piece our own head together.
Also much debt.
[x] Go over the entire crew as best you can
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
This option has the benefit of going into depth with our mind skill on Marcus which should both help us improve and may make it easier for the character to fix her own mind, and helping the worst of the crew which as mentioned has become relatively easy as this should earn either a reward or debt for Dagwood for ourselves and Az while not taking to much time we miss out on Az's recruitment which I believe is one of the characters skill sets.
This option has the benefit of going into depth with our mind skill on Marcus which should both help us improve and may make it easier for the character to fix her own mind, and helping the worst of the crew which as mentioned has become relatively easy as this should earn either a reward or debt for Dagwood for ourselves and Az while not taking to much time we miss out on Az's recruitment which I believe is one of the characters skill sets.
torrmercury
Necromancer
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
WanderingEye
smol skeleton
[x] Go over the entire crew as best you can
[X] Surface repair the worst off of the crew
