Ah this was great it's wonderful watching Geto and Gojo having fun while learning and growing! I'm really looking forward to what the two of them learn on this whole adventure. That said I feel bad for Irukuku poor thing is in for a bit of a rough time though with that said neither Gojo or Geto will do anything bad their just a tad bit over enthusiastic.
DODGE THE WHEEL
- Thread starter BrunofanofK
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- washington
I just want them to really show off and show the natives how unprepared they are for cultivators. Fuck I mean even in canon halkegenia would get its ass kicked by normally earth fuck they'd probably get their ass kicked by normal ww1 earth.
Wonder what cultivation has done for science and if Zagreus has sent spaceship design and bullshit tech back towards home.
- Location
- Brazil
It will be a good time for Zagreus and Reila to hash things off. Their relationship can be said to be truly one between siblings as they are irrevocably connected and share enough lived experience to know how each other ticks. But this doesn't mean they don't have rough spots. Unity and the Worldwound proved they stand on the same side though. Reila was a freedom fighter and she wishes for the best to humankind, it is just that she barely understands what happened. While the occult was a fact of life magic was still outpaced by firearms, Termina, new and old gods goes way beyond what the average person has to deal with. It's very Berkerk-like in world-building.
What both agree on is that anything that attracts Olympus or Ma'habre's attention to these aliens is absolutely off-limits.
- Location
- washington
Any chance Zagreus tries to pull his discord, freedom, and rebellion bullshit against the batarians? Also I'm excited to see mass effect galaxy swell his worship.
- Location
- under your house
- Pronouns
- She/Her
damn Geto is becoming Miqella the Tickella
Mass Effect 1
- Location
- Brazil
The boundary between dreams and reality is a curse. A liminal space intersecting and bonding space and time like the backroom of the stage play we call reality. A madness dimension operating on principles beyond human Reason. That is why I am guided by passion!
The labyrinth is like the entrails of a beast forking endlessly. Time has little to no meaning here, except as another 'coordinate' one can walk- travel toward or against. The only thing capable of being regarded as a benchmark is the surroundings. From walls made entirely of green crystal with temperature and pressure capable of cooking a mortal man in seconds to polished stone bearing subzero temperatures and no atmosphere to speak of.
Even with the strength of eight hundred and ten men, mythical power, fortifying nectar, and the acclimation of the pocket cat mantle, I still found the travel taxing but what made it worse was the silent treatment. Logic is a goddess of pure… well, logic and consensus, designed to overcome the trappings of the human condition; she is literally incapable of pettiness. Reila, the woman buried under the machine goddess… not so much.
Logic was a project created to quantify the human soul through technological means by inducting the subject into a lucid dream state to converge the conscious and unconscious minds when the processing powers of the human psyche (soul) are at their fullest potential while the machine converts said information into ones and zeros.
Its potential brought the attention of the mysterious Kaiser of the Brimic Empire, an entity Logic suspects to be a New God of Ma'habre and the Old God Rher. Super-Hitler and Lovecraftian god, one attempting to go ever further beyond while the other tried to gatekeep the monkeys out. That Kefka-look-alike never tried to stop me from activating Logic though. He was lying when he said he served Rher, he was just a vulture preying on powerful souls for obscure designs. What a fiasco… too many cooks ruin the broth.
Reila and Olivia were identical twins yet one was born a Radiant soul while the other was born a Shadowed soul. This goes against everything I know about the soul of twins but… Radiant and Shadowed, two halves of a whole. For all I know this might be the kind of quirk similar to Maki and Mai where one manifested heavenly restriction while the other was a weak sorcerer.
Whatever the case, all the fourteen players each had a unique soul. That Kefka-look-alike must have done something, tagger our souls in some way, that is the most likely cause for the souls of defeated contestants to be absorbed by the one that killed them. Another higher power on the sideline. The fact he was furious with me not because I failed to comply but because... I don't know for sure. To this day Termina is full of mysteries. Also, a problem for the future.
What matters is the results. By consuming and integrating Olivia's soul I inherited her bond with Reila. It created a link between Reila and me, which created a circuit between Logic and Rher, the higher powers we had been briefly communing with. The perfect chaos cocktail to birth an Ascended God like Almer and Fear & Hunger. Logic is still a chrysalis though, until Rher dies that is. And Reila was supposed to have died, sublimated inside Logic. Incidentally, this link created a Full Metal Alchemy situation where I am eating for two; a small price to pay to get one foot at the door.
A soul searching for Ma'habrean is like an iceberg adrift in the sea. The visible part we see over water is the conscious mechanism of the mind, while what lies below it is the unconscious shadow. It follows a very Jungian-like psychic structure. The Shadow is connected to the personal and collective unconscious layers of the soul; something supported by cultivation as each cultural sphere has its own style of cultivation. In that sense, rather than a climb toward ivory heights the pursuit of the holy city of the gods is performed by exploring cavernous deeps in search of soul-penetrating knowledge. Good thing then that my virtue is bipolar... no, it would be more correct to say my brush with Rher is what caused said schism.
This is relevant because Reila ended up in this mess because she and her rebel palls thought the Kaiser wanted to use it as a mind control device to conquer the world… because he couldn't be super-Hitler enough. The link to the collective consciousness is how Logic ended up as the goddess of Soul Cloud Computing, wireless internet, and search engines. And as our souls mirror each other her monument to Ego is big enough for her Reila personality to persevere. Say hello to internet-chan, the Greek goddess of social media! Pray to her every day or she will disconnect your-
"You are thinking something unkind to me, aren't you brother?" Reila says from the AI core strapped to my waist. Unsurprisingly, we are siblings in mystery faith: both tempered by Rher's baleful green light. We can totally talk wirelessly except for the fact I dislike it, a quirk she is thankful for.
"What? No! I would never! Nooooo," I say the more overly dramatically possible, extracting a laugh out of the pouty goddess.
"You are so unfair! Don't make me laugh when I am still angry at you for blowing me off to chase skirt!" She chastises. Now that she got an upgrade the steampunk look she had going has been replaced by the more slick aesthetic of modern sci-fi, making her look like numerian android instead of a tin can. This gave her the range of motion to pout-
"I am not pouting!"
"That is what you get for being a peeping tom. Father in raging heaven, but I am going to become to god of VPNs and privacy just to correct your bad behavior!"
"Pretty sure you already are, mister raven-that-is-no-one," she fires back. Worse is, she isn't wrong either. We have an Apollo & Artemis thing going on. Just that this time Apollo is the prude super virgin-
"I am not! It is you lot born after the 21st century that are a bunch of degenerates! And you are doing it on purpose!"
"Okay, boomer."
"I am part of the greatest generation actually." She fired back, enjoying our game despite her reservation.
"Look, how about I make up to you? You pick the direction of our next destination and in there I play the role of side-kick this round for our stay there."
"I am not your sidekick!"
"Aren't you? Aren't you really? You are the Cortana to my master chief, the series may be called Halo, but I am the protagonist."
She honestly growled at me in younger sister fury. "You are impossible! Fine, then follow my direction." She conceded, taking the victory he could reach as we moved on.
Eventually, she demands I stop pondering about her surroundings. The place was kind of like the inside of Divinity, worn but well-maintained. There were signs of wear and tear and the material was cheap metal, polymer and steel, nowhere near as durable as glaucite: a clear sign of habitation.
"That one seems interesting enough. Why don't you take a peek, Zagreus?"
"Right away," I accented and stepped back into real space. Put emphasis on 'space'. We were in space! We stumbled our way into a spaceship! At my current standing, the sight of a hero is better than a top-of-art telescope through body refinement alone, and mine is likely better due to Rher's influence. Opening my extra set of eyes, I see right through the spaceship, a kilometer-long vessel, and spot the close by celestial bodies.
Reila starts to laugh aloud as she racks into the ship's system to give us some insight into where the hell we are. She then infodump what she gleamed by uploading the information in my brain through our telepathic bond; a commodity I don't know how I lived without until I had it, look how lucky I am!
"I could do without the sarcasm, a simple thank you would be nice too!"
The year 1139 of Galactic Standard Time from After Citadel Founding. Citadel being a massive space station constructed over 50 millennia ago in the heart of the Serpent Nebula, close to the star known as the Widow. A massive construct, similar in shape to a pentagram. It consists of a central ring 7.2 kilometers in diameter, from which five arms protrude, each 43.6 km long and 330m wide. The heart of the galactic civilization of space-faring intelligent species, something to commit to memory.
Currently, we are in a Krogan pirate vessel. Well, more like a privateer really. The Krogan are a species the Citadel Council (space government) uplifted to save them from a space bug species called Rachni. And the Krogan proved themselves damn good at it too, driving the Rachni extinct in about two hundred years. And then a krogan with slightly less brain damage than his average kindred asked himself what prevented the Krogan race from overtaking the Citadel Races like the Rachni almost did and the council discovered they traded a quick breeding overly aggressive species for another.
Pirating is just the prelude to invasion and the Krogans have set their sight on the new kid in the block white knighting for the Council, the turians. A velociraptor-like-race, it seems humanoid form is giving the crab-like shape a run for its money, as the majority of races that achieved space flight and reached the citadel are humanoid; behold the mighty power of oppositive thumbs!
The Krogans are rebelling against the Citadel, though cooler heads are still attempting a diplomatic approach even as the Krogans make moves to take planets already colonized by Citadel races. They had their good times, two hundred years of war against the Rachni curried to the race a lot of goodwill, but what followed was three hundred years of expansion. The krogan numbers have swelled to the point they might be able to conquer the Citadel through sheer numbers.
The Krogan War already started, and like in WWII, the asari planet of Lusia became Poland. The dice has been cast and dozens of billions will die in the incoming conflict… what is Reila thinking, reliving her resistance days?
Well, nothing to do but greet the natives. I discarded the pocket cat mantle and donned my Sunday's best for my first contact, an updated version of my cyber cowboy from Numeria, synthetic pants, and a sleeveless shirt with a high collar with strategically placed details to accentuate the angles of my body and a good jacked to hide most of the straps, giving me a plausible excuse to produce anything I might need with style in Supreme drip. I considered the HEVsuit version of the raven's midnight mantle but that thing is designed to inspire dread. I recently became too big to fit comfortably in the ship as well so my youthful form will have to do. Krogans might be brutes but they still are sentient and civilized, there is hope they might hear me out that is why I have to put my best foot forward. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
First Contact didn't go well. As in, they tried to eat me, and when I defended myself things escalated out of hand. Have you ever cleared a game and then returned to the starting area with endgame gear and level? That is how I feel right now. Krogans are among the hardiest known lifeforms in the galaxy, but they are still mere mortals in all the ways that matter. It's easy to see how cultivators could grow to regard mortals with contempt. How can creatures that fall apart with a touch be this presumptuous?
"Fire at will!" Screamed the leader as Krogan soldiers leveraged all sorts of energy weapons against me. Laser beams, plasma shotguns, frost rays, gravity shredders, all staples of sci-fi were shot at me, and every single one of them was equally worthless. My Logos sheathed me like a suit of armor bending the laws of nature to the point their state of art stolen firearms were rendered into useless toys.
It should be an obvious result but even so a part of me can't help but feel as shocked as the Krogans. Mortals have become genuinely harmless and helpless against me, even the outcome of their effort can be altered by my pleasure or displeasure alone: the Force of Will of a mythical being of high enough standing can pull the treads of fate to alter outcomes. Not a factor when two mythical beings contest with each other but mortals are not so lucky. After the sixth missile launcher sailed harmlessly over my head, they started to suspect something was up.
Okay, no more Mister Nice Guy.
All fears spring from a singular source - the fear of death. The acknowledgment of one's mortality instills paralyzing dread in all live forms because to be alive is to be destined to die. Sapient beings struggle with it in a way innocent animals living in the eternal present simply can't fathom. The chain of causality, that sword of Damocles, of consequences leading one to the grave is the fuel driving the race against mortality we call cultivation. And that is why chthonic symbols inspire reverence.
Golarion was full of landsstepped in Death. To begin with, all mortal creatures have an affinity with death so Golarion had compiled a true menagerie of entities stepped on death. From undead abominations and monsters existing apart from the natural order to living animals so attuned to negative energy and shadows they are regarded as omens of death.
"Shadows, and whatever those shadows contain. The king of a marble city is king of all that resides within his domain. The king of shadows is just the same. All that persists in the shade is his to command…"
I bring my hand up and then bring it down and all krogans are paralyzed, wrapped by midnight spider silky threads the same way they are swaddled by destined death. Then came the fear as my influence radiated death through my virtue (despair). I could hear their breath seize up and their twin hearts speed up. Part of me was tempted to give them a second chance… but they would not have given me any so...
"W-wait-!"
I did not. With a flick of my wrist, I pulled the spiderweb as my Logos made it sharp enough to cut even the magic sense of any who would dare to brush their influence against mine. Their ceramic hardsuits might as well be made of cardboard paper for all the good they did. It was an instantaneous massacre as body parts flew around and the walls were painted with yellow blood.
Apparently, whoever was expecting the show from the camera systems was spooked enough to trigger a total lockdown. Metal steel doors closed from all sides like a beast's mandible throughout the entire ship; a delaying strategy. It was nowhere near as aggravating as the siren buzzing and red lights.
I signed in exasperation and advanced. The tempered metal doors were no obstacle, I phased through them like a ghost. Mimicking the supernatural abilities of the undead was trivial to a scholar of profound mystery such as me in my field of specialization - all but the most exotic of undead abilities were encompassed by the Wheel Turning.
What followed was something out of a horror movie, a futile struggle against a foe the pirates had no hope of overcoming or escaping as they were torn apart by an invincible monster. Logic prevented the captain from sending a distress signal through the extranet but I wasn't heartless enough to pursue the krogans that fled using the escaping pods.
In the end I had a ghost ship. The only living souls left in the brutish vessel were I and the captives, some kept as emergence ration and other for ransom. Krogans are brutal reavers, their unforgiving homeworld breed out almost all compassion from their hearts. Their atypical reaction to overwhelming fear, the blood rage, condition once regarded as a mental illness was favored by natural selection once Tuchanka biosphere was destroyed by atomic warfare is the cherry on top of the shit sundae. Overall, they are easy to hate but I still hold some sympathy for them. They won't be a threat to the intelligent space faring races if the Council hadn't been this cowardly and left the species to live through their dark age on their own.
Good part of the captives had been Vorcha, another savage race with astounding biology capable of adapting to any circumstance. Krogans liked to brutalize them to make them stronger and more aggressive and used them as food by sewing their limbs periodically for the meat. A short-lived species, most of galactic society regard Vorcha as little more than clever savage animals. There is nothing I can do for them but release them in the nearest desolated planet.
Now much more interesting were the turian captives. Krogans like to overplay the role of savages but they aren't half as dumb as they would like others to think they are. The turians were all young scions of high-level citizens, the krogans wanted more than money for ransom. The idea a turian would betray the collective for their own self-interest is very krogan in mindset, where weakness and selflessness are sins and treachery doesn't arouse surprise nor offence.
Now let's see if second contact will be more fruitful than the first one.
The young turians were not spared from the panic I caused. The hope of rescue quickly morphed into dread as the intercom broadcasted the krogans final moments. Their captivity had not been the most welcoming either and some of their number had died long before I reached the ship.
In order to make thing easier Reila lifted the lockdown so my entrance was not too stressful. But I had to admit it was a bit funny to see the fear in their faces morph into confusion as I turned the corner. It was clear that I had to reorient myself to mortal standards, the extra brain power does little for the innate biases and expectations. The cosmetics of cultivation not only refine the body's beauty in a way that is palpable even for the naked eye but I also had all those quintessences from powerful entities in my chakras.
It is no wonder they froze in confusion, Noctitula's mark in my body made my every move almost hypnotic and as one would expect from the first succubus/dark muse/lady in shadows, it defies incredulity to the point of absurdity, not losing to Orpheus who charmed from rocks to the dead. The barrier between species and gender doesn't even merit a mention. Yanca might be able to just brush it off but mortals with sleeping souls are pretty much helpless. Most of them that is, there is always one that stands head and shoulder above the rest.
"Why, the rumors about the asari's comeliness seem to be in fact understated. Are you an Asari huntress here to rescue us perhaps? I am Gallus Domititus, and in the name of my companions I thank you."
"I am not an Asari," I say deciding to go easy on them since I can hardly expect a alien to understand enough of human physiology to realize how creepy hitting on someone clearly below sixteen is. Besides he is mostly putting on a strong front for the sake of his friends, a natural born leader this young Gallus is. "But I am indeed rescuing you. My name is Zagreus and I am a homo sapiens," I explain bashfully, only too late realizing how the Babylon shard translate it into 'sage man being'.
The turians just stared at me some more, it seems the keratinous plated faces of their species gave them little to no contact and consequently resistance to 'moe'. I have been teased often enough by Tsumiki, Yuki, and recently Reila to realize the effect I have on people.
"…so, do any of you know how to drive this bathtub? I would like to get solid ground among civilized people sooner rather than later."
My words shocked them out of their funks and the young turians moved out of their opened sell as if they had lightning in their heels.
The reason the Galactic Council did not resort to a robotic army manned by AI to solve their Rachni related problems back then or their current Krogan of today is due to the fiasco of the quarrian fiasco with the geth. This cautionary tale serves to this day as justification to ban all artificial intelligence. So Reila will have to either deal with the hassle of having a body limiting her or keep to the sideline and down low, a decision she is conflicted by.
The turian school excursion group is tense, the signs of dead bodies I left in my wake has put them in edge. They don't know how I could even have done such a thing to begin with, arousing suspicion and paranoia. Well, it is better than me walking around as a nine feet tall demi-god. Mortals are impressed easily and I got enough ass-kissing in Golarion to last me a lifetime… Father in raging heaven, where did this come from? I guess the saying that heroes live in a different world from philosophers and citizens hold some truth. It feels closer to the boundary that alienated Gojo in his youth, something even these sleeping souls yet to awaken to their place in the world can perceive, something something flowers.
Said that these mortals still really came in handy. Instead of using wormholes to travel, ships can achieve faster than light cruise speed thanks to this 'element zero'. Despite its name, it is not actually a chemical element. Ez is generated when solid matter, such as a planet, is affected by the energy of a star going supernova. The material is common in the asteroid debris that orbits neutron stars and pulsars. When subjected to an electrical current, it affects dark matter (hypothetical form of matter that appears not to interact with light or the electromagnetic field) which can be manipulated into a mass effect field, raising or lowering the mass of all objects within that field.
A positive current increases mass, a negative current decrease it. This "mass effect" is used in countless ways, from generating artificial gravity to manufacturing high-strength construction materials. It is most prominently used to enable faster-than-light space travel without causing time dilation. It is no overstatement to say Element Zero is the linchpin of space faring civilizations of the milk way.
That is why trying to walk to the nearest habitable planet would be a challenge even for me who can breathe in a vacuum. To avoid detection the krogan pirates hided in the butt ass end of nowhere beyond where anyone bother to go to avoid detection. the power of the vortex dragon makes it viable but the scales of time for those ancient lizards is not something I care for. So having a crew to mane the ship and give me a visa for the citadel is a real godsent.
Travel at FLS is what you would expect from a sci-fi, a blur of flashes as we run by stars so quickly to perceive them as blurs. Talking with many temporary crew reveals these kids are privileged but still colonials from relatively new settlements, there is no way a krogan pirate ship could successful operate deep in turian held space. According to them that is, they are young and think the world of their parent so I took everything said with a grain of salt.
After two days of travel we reached the Kastruanides system where two turian colonies had been founded… just in time to watch the fireworks.
"Brother!" Reila screamed aloud from every single audio device in the ship at maximum volume, her elegant face displayed in every monitor, a scowl of fury and outrage replacing her usually inviting smile. In my experience this breakdown of composure is only caused by one topic, a leftover from her mortal life. War.
The kids were not faring much better. Understandable, we had the VIP seats to the destruction of their homeworld as the nearby krogan fleet showed the inventiveness that destroyed the ecosystem of their homeworld. Why bother building a Death Star when strategic use of element zero can make any nearby space debris into a bullet? The krogan dropped a meteor o a turian colony, death on a scale capable of making even the gods to break out in a cold sweat.
The shrieks of soul renting despair, whales of outrage, and cry of retribution where the chorum to the spectacle. To them it was a spear of light nailing the planet, followed by a flash pooping in the surface proceeded by a wave. My sight was sharp enough to caught on the little details, how the cities, small and delicate and pristine like models sculped by a crafter careful hand, were either blow to bits by the resulting blast, swallowed by cloud waves of dust and cinder too hot for any mortal being to endure or washed away by resulting tsunamis.
By my calculation I am watching billions die and there isn't much even I can do for them. Reila know this too. She isn't asking me to save them but to avenge them. I look around, Gallus was not watching his world fall apart like his fellow. Instead he was watching us, watching me. Skewering me with his gaze.
Troublesome.
"Sister, you know it as well as I do. At certain points, depending on the parts involved, discourse turn into dispute. This is the way of the world, the rules of nature even you nor I have any power to change as we are. And even if we did I question whether we should, it is only justice that mortals are left to live their brief lives as they choose. We will have to get up the stage and the impact of our actions will affect trillions of lives! What right do we travelers have to dictate how these people owe to live?" I say it aloud because it needs to be said.
We don't get to just walk away. Not from this. We might have the power to start war as we will but we don't get to end it as we please. My virtuous heart won't accept leaving things a mess for others to fix and cultivation will change everything for them.
"… I understand it. But even then, I can't just leave things as they are. If I could stay on the sideline then I wouldn't even be here right now." Reila gave me her answer, what a troublesome little sister. So demanding even though she can do next to nothing without my help.
I stroke my heart flame and the light behind my eyes shined with the light of a birthing star, with this light I skewered the souls of the turians on the command bridge. The spark of Prometheus was meant for his children but considering even animals can cultivate I don't see why the mortal aliens can't become cultivators. I touched their souls and awakened them to their place in the world.
I did more than that, in fact. Much like Rher's moonlight brought out the worst qualities of a person to the surface my light brings out their best, their virtue. Like a sculptor's loving hand, I carved the crude elements of their souls to bring out the promise buried inside the marble. I am nowhere near as gentle as the Titan of molten clay though, to cultivate is to refine and to bring out the truth of a blade one subject it to heat and pressure; all this world and its people, tarnished iron.
The turians screamed, my light is just as scorching and merciless as the Moon.
"W-what are you people really?" Gallus asked in true astonishment.
Reila got up from the pod in the meanwhile and take her AI core from my hand.
"We are slipping up for the time being, you descend to Equpilia in search of survivors that can still be saved. I am leaving my sister in your hands for the time being to help with the relief efforts." I say, driving the point home with a pause. "Do not disappoint me."
"And… where are you going then?" another Turian asks.
"Isn't obvious? I am going to deliver justice to those responsible for that," I say while pointing at the destroyed planet.
An electric tension takes over the young Turians, and the flames of vengeance burn bright in their eyes. They clenched their fists, marveling at their newfound strength. They were stronger than a first rank civic cultivators had any right to be. I scorched clean their weaknesses and shined a light on their strength. They no longer felt like the sorry wretches destined to be krogan emergence ration.
"Zagreus, make it hurt. For us. Okay, friend?" Gallus said with audacity his fellows could not muster. Ha, I knew I liked him for a reason!
"Sure, but next time you better not lag behind. We can't let it become a habit." I demanded as space warped and folded and I was swallowed by a silver vortex.
And so first contact start our more violently than most expected but this is the only way Zagreus would step into the spotlight. He is more than capable to act in the shadows so I needed to engender a reason for him to go all out pretty much from the beginning.
I also had to change the date of some events. Almost all historical events in Mass Effect happened in the last 300 years before humanity joined the galactic council. Considering how humanity managed to perform it seems like there is some technological stagnation going on, which fits with the Reaper's agenda of pigeonhole species in a tech tree they dominate.
I think I said this before but people underestimate the scales of things in an astronomic level. It is a common writer's sin of 40K – the scales of conflicts are either too small or become so overblow that it break the powerscale of the setting. Those who know of the Cacodominus, its feats, and its death knells and then compare it to Primarchs' can't help but come out thinking it could defeat all of them at the same time, save the Emperor and ChaosHorus.
Zagreus and Reila are in a peculiar position where they are effectively untouchable and unstoppable but they can only be in one place at time, being no better than a water drop in the sea. I mentioned before but I like to use D&D/Pathfinder spells as power ceiling for mortals while also adding the headcanon that spell casters spelllist from the 7th level and above are restricted to their specialty schools. It helps both in flavor and restricting the advantage wizards have over spontaneous spellcasters with a limited list.
In Zagreus' case Rher's mystery give him access to Interplanetary Teleport, this 9th level spell is a limitless range teleport, the Maximum Technique that displays the true potential of Rher's suffocation of space; Gojo wasn't kidding when he said Rher's power could breach his infinity. The only limitation is that he can only transport himself plus those he is directly touching and he must have a solid grasp of which world he wish to travel to ("the third planet from the sun" is an acceptable destination, but "a habitable world near that bright star" is not). Now, this is the limit of his Logos, but when you add mythical power and heroic glory things go haywire.
The mythical version of this spell is what the elves of pathfinder use to create their 'elf gates' to permanently connect planets to each other. Kind of like the eldar webway. And a hero's heart flame goes without mention.
For those curious about Zagreus raven cloak, search for Brynhildr of Odin Sphere. The color scheme and distribution of her wings are the same.
The labyrinth is like the entrails of a beast forking endlessly. Time has little to no meaning here, except as another 'coordinate' one can walk- travel toward or against. The only thing capable of being regarded as a benchmark is the surroundings. From walls made entirely of green crystal with temperature and pressure capable of cooking a mortal man in seconds to polished stone bearing subzero temperatures and no atmosphere to speak of.
Even with the strength of eight hundred and ten men, mythical power, fortifying nectar, and the acclimation of the pocket cat mantle, I still found the travel taxing but what made it worse was the silent treatment. Logic is a goddess of pure… well, logic and consensus, designed to overcome the trappings of the human condition; she is literally incapable of pettiness. Reila, the woman buried under the machine goddess… not so much.
Logic was a project created to quantify the human soul through technological means by inducting the subject into a lucid dream state to converge the conscious and unconscious minds when the processing powers of the human psyche (soul) are at their fullest potential while the machine converts said information into ones and zeros.
Its potential brought the attention of the mysterious Kaiser of the Brimic Empire, an entity Logic suspects to be a New God of Ma'habre and the Old God Rher. Super-Hitler and Lovecraftian god, one attempting to go ever further beyond while the other tried to gatekeep the monkeys out. That Kefka-look-alike never tried to stop me from activating Logic though. He was lying when he said he served Rher, he was just a vulture preying on powerful souls for obscure designs. What a fiasco… too many cooks ruin the broth.
Reila and Olivia were identical twins yet one was born a Radiant soul while the other was born a Shadowed soul. This goes against everything I know about the soul of twins but… Radiant and Shadowed, two halves of a whole. For all I know this might be the kind of quirk similar to Maki and Mai where one manifested heavenly restriction while the other was a weak sorcerer.
Whatever the case, all the fourteen players each had a unique soul. That Kefka-look-alike must have done something, tagger our souls in some way, that is the most likely cause for the souls of defeated contestants to be absorbed by the one that killed them. Another higher power on the sideline. The fact he was furious with me not because I failed to comply but because... I don't know for sure. To this day Termina is full of mysteries. Also, a problem for the future.
What matters is the results. By consuming and integrating Olivia's soul I inherited her bond with Reila. It created a link between Reila and me, which created a circuit between Logic and Rher, the higher powers we had been briefly communing with. The perfect chaos cocktail to birth an Ascended God like Almer and Fear & Hunger. Logic is still a chrysalis though, until Rher dies that is. And Reila was supposed to have died, sublimated inside Logic. Incidentally, this link created a Full Metal Alchemy situation where I am eating for two; a small price to pay to get one foot at the door.
A soul searching for Ma'habrean is like an iceberg adrift in the sea. The visible part we see over water is the conscious mechanism of the mind, while what lies below it is the unconscious shadow. It follows a very Jungian-like psychic structure. The Shadow is connected to the personal and collective unconscious layers of the soul; something supported by cultivation as each cultural sphere has its own style of cultivation. In that sense, rather than a climb toward ivory heights the pursuit of the holy city of the gods is performed by exploring cavernous deeps in search of soul-penetrating knowledge. Good thing then that my virtue is bipolar... no, it would be more correct to say my brush with Rher is what caused said schism.
This is relevant because Reila ended up in this mess because she and her rebel palls thought the Kaiser wanted to use it as a mind control device to conquer the world… because he couldn't be super-Hitler enough. The link to the collective consciousness is how Logic ended up as the goddess of Soul Cloud Computing, wireless internet, and search engines. And as our souls mirror each other her monument to Ego is big enough for her Reila personality to persevere. Say hello to internet-chan, the Greek goddess of social media! Pray to her every day or she will disconnect your-
"You are thinking something unkind to me, aren't you brother?" Reila says from the AI core strapped to my waist. Unsurprisingly, we are siblings in mystery faith: both tempered by Rher's baleful green light. We can totally talk wirelessly except for the fact I dislike it, a quirk she is thankful for.
"What? No! I would never! Nooooo," I say the more overly dramatically possible, extracting a laugh out of the pouty goddess.
"You are so unfair! Don't make me laugh when I am still angry at you for blowing me off to chase skirt!" She chastises. Now that she got an upgrade the steampunk look she had going has been replaced by the more slick aesthetic of modern sci-fi, making her look like numerian android instead of a tin can. This gave her the range of motion to pout-
"I am not pouting!"
"That is what you get for being a peeping tom. Father in raging heaven, but I am going to become to god of VPNs and privacy just to correct your bad behavior!"
"Pretty sure you already are, mister raven-that-is-no-one," she fires back. Worse is, she isn't wrong either. We have an Apollo & Artemis thing going on. Just that this time Apollo is the prude super virgin-
"I am not! It is you lot born after the 21st century that are a bunch of degenerates! And you are doing it on purpose!"
"Okay, boomer."
"I am part of the greatest generation actually." She fired back, enjoying our game despite her reservation.
"Look, how about I make up to you? You pick the direction of our next destination and in there I play the role of side-kick this round for our stay there."
"I am not your sidekick!"
"Aren't you? Aren't you really? You are the Cortana to my master chief, the series may be called Halo, but I am the protagonist."
She honestly growled at me in younger sister fury. "You are impossible! Fine, then follow my direction." She conceded, taking the victory he could reach as we moved on.
-//-
Eventually we left behind the cruder backrooms made from natural materials to walk into sterile corridors of industrialized fashion. Even then we marched through a dizzying variety of scientific fiction backgrounds, from some that resembled the ruins found in Numeria to others that were bioengineered like the Dominion of Black. Until mercifully Reila found one background to her liking; it was all gut feeling and caprice, she has little to no means to guide herself here, even sharing the same mystery two people will display it in radically different ways. Traveling was my specialty, Reila is a city girl through and through, even if her definition of cosmopolitan life is stuck in the 1940s.
Eventually, she demands I stop pondering about her surroundings. The place was kind of like the inside of Divinity, worn but well-maintained. There were signs of wear and tear and the material was cheap metal, polymer and steel, nowhere near as durable as glaucite: a clear sign of habitation.
"That one seems interesting enough. Why don't you take a peek, Zagreus?"
"Right away," I accented and stepped back into real space. Put emphasis on 'space'. We were in space! We stumbled our way into a spaceship! At my current standing, the sight of a hero is better than a top-of-art telescope through body refinement alone, and mine is likely better due to Rher's influence. Opening my extra set of eyes, I see right through the spaceship, a kilometer-long vessel, and spot the close by celestial bodies.
Reila starts to laugh aloud as she racks into the ship's system to give us some insight into where the hell we are. She then infodump what she gleamed by uploading the information in my brain through our telepathic bond; a commodity I don't know how I lived without until I had it, look how lucky I am!
"I could do without the sarcasm, a simple thank you would be nice too!"
The year 1139 of Galactic Standard Time from After Citadel Founding. Citadel being a massive space station constructed over 50 millennia ago in the heart of the Serpent Nebula, close to the star known as the Widow. A massive construct, similar in shape to a pentagram. It consists of a central ring 7.2 kilometers in diameter, from which five arms protrude, each 43.6 km long and 330m wide. The heart of the galactic civilization of space-faring intelligent species, something to commit to memory.
Currently, we are in a Krogan pirate vessel. Well, more like a privateer really. The Krogan are a species the Citadel Council (space government) uplifted to save them from a space bug species called Rachni. And the Krogan proved themselves damn good at it too, driving the Rachni extinct in about two hundred years. And then a krogan with slightly less brain damage than his average kindred asked himself what prevented the Krogan race from overtaking the Citadel Races like the Rachni almost did and the council discovered they traded a quick breeding overly aggressive species for another.
Pirating is just the prelude to invasion and the Krogans have set their sight on the new kid in the block white knighting for the Council, the turians. A velociraptor-like-race, it seems humanoid form is giving the crab-like shape a run for its money, as the majority of races that achieved space flight and reached the citadel are humanoid; behold the mighty power of oppositive thumbs!
The Krogans are rebelling against the Citadel, though cooler heads are still attempting a diplomatic approach even as the Krogans make moves to take planets already colonized by Citadel races. They had their good times, two hundred years of war against the Rachni curried to the race a lot of goodwill, but what followed was three hundred years of expansion. The krogan numbers have swelled to the point they might be able to conquer the Citadel through sheer numbers.
The Krogan War already started, and like in WWII, the asari planet of Lusia became Poland. The dice has been cast and dozens of billions will die in the incoming conflict… what is Reila thinking, reliving her resistance days?
Well, nothing to do but greet the natives. I discarded the pocket cat mantle and donned my Sunday's best for my first contact, an updated version of my cyber cowboy from Numeria, synthetic pants, and a sleeveless shirt with a high collar with strategically placed details to accentuate the angles of my body and a good jacked to hide most of the straps, giving me a plausible excuse to produce anything I might need with style in Supreme drip. I considered the HEVsuit version of the raven's midnight mantle but that thing is designed to inspire dread. I recently became too big to fit comfortably in the ship as well so my youthful form will have to do. Krogans might be brutes but they still are sentient and civilized, there is hope they might hear me out that is why I have to put my best foot forward. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
-//-
"I will have you served on a plate for what you have done to Grurloc! Your hide will be mounted in my trophies collection," Screamed the lieutenant as he worked his subordinates into a frenzy.
First Contact didn't go well. As in, they tried to eat me, and when I defended myself things escalated out of hand. Have you ever cleared a game and then returned to the starting area with endgame gear and level? That is how I feel right now. Krogans are among the hardiest known lifeforms in the galaxy, but they are still mere mortals in all the ways that matter. It's easy to see how cultivators could grow to regard mortals with contempt. How can creatures that fall apart with a touch be this presumptuous?
"Fire at will!" Screamed the leader as Krogan soldiers leveraged all sorts of energy weapons against me. Laser beams, plasma shotguns, frost rays, gravity shredders, all staples of sci-fi were shot at me, and every single one of them was equally worthless. My Logos sheathed me like a suit of armor bending the laws of nature to the point their state of art stolen firearms were rendered into useless toys.
It should be an obvious result but even so a part of me can't help but feel as shocked as the Krogans. Mortals have become genuinely harmless and helpless against me, even the outcome of their effort can be altered by my pleasure or displeasure alone: the Force of Will of a mythical being of high enough standing can pull the treads of fate to alter outcomes. Not a factor when two mythical beings contest with each other but mortals are not so lucky. After the sixth missile launcher sailed harmlessly over my head, they started to suspect something was up.
Okay, no more Mister Nice Guy.
All fears spring from a singular source - the fear of death. The acknowledgment of one's mortality instills paralyzing dread in all live forms because to be alive is to be destined to die. Sapient beings struggle with it in a way innocent animals living in the eternal present simply can't fathom. The chain of causality, that sword of Damocles, of consequences leading one to the grave is the fuel driving the race against mortality we call cultivation. And that is why chthonic symbols inspire reverence.
Golarion was full of landsstepped in Death. To begin with, all mortal creatures have an affinity with death so Golarion had compiled a true menagerie of entities stepped on death. From undead abominations and monsters existing apart from the natural order to living animals so attuned to negative energy and shadows they are regarded as omens of death.
"Shadows, and whatever those shadows contain. The king of a marble city is king of all that resides within his domain. The king of shadows is just the same. All that persists in the shade is his to command…"
I bring my hand up and then bring it down and all krogans are paralyzed, wrapped by midnight spider silky threads the same way they are swaddled by destined death. Then came the fear as my influence radiated death through my virtue (despair). I could hear their breath seize up and their twin hearts speed up. Part of me was tempted to give them a second chance… but they would not have given me any so...
"W-wait-!"
I did not. With a flick of my wrist, I pulled the spiderweb as my Logos made it sharp enough to cut even the magic sense of any who would dare to brush their influence against mine. Their ceramic hardsuits might as well be made of cardboard paper for all the good they did. It was an instantaneous massacre as body parts flew around and the walls were painted with yellow blood.
Apparently, whoever was expecting the show from the camera systems was spooked enough to trigger a total lockdown. Metal steel doors closed from all sides like a beast's mandible throughout the entire ship; a delaying strategy. It was nowhere near as aggravating as the siren buzzing and red lights.
I signed in exasperation and advanced. The tempered metal doors were no obstacle, I phased through them like a ghost. Mimicking the supernatural abilities of the undead was trivial to a scholar of profound mystery such as me in my field of specialization - all but the most exotic of undead abilities were encompassed by the Wheel Turning.
What followed was something out of a horror movie, a futile struggle against a foe the pirates had no hope of overcoming or escaping as they were torn apart by an invincible monster. Logic prevented the captain from sending a distress signal through the extranet but I wasn't heartless enough to pursue the krogans that fled using the escaping pods.
In the end I had a ghost ship. The only living souls left in the brutish vessel were I and the captives, some kept as emergence ration and other for ransom. Krogans are brutal reavers, their unforgiving homeworld breed out almost all compassion from their hearts. Their atypical reaction to overwhelming fear, the blood rage, condition once regarded as a mental illness was favored by natural selection once Tuchanka biosphere was destroyed by atomic warfare is the cherry on top of the shit sundae. Overall, they are easy to hate but I still hold some sympathy for them. They won't be a threat to the intelligent space faring races if the Council hadn't been this cowardly and left the species to live through their dark age on their own.
Good part of the captives had been Vorcha, another savage race with astounding biology capable of adapting to any circumstance. Krogans liked to brutalize them to make them stronger and more aggressive and used them as food by sewing their limbs periodically for the meat. A short-lived species, most of galactic society regard Vorcha as little more than clever savage animals. There is nothing I can do for them but release them in the nearest desolated planet.
Now much more interesting were the turian captives. Krogans like to overplay the role of savages but they aren't half as dumb as they would like others to think they are. The turians were all young scions of high-level citizens, the krogans wanted more than money for ransom. The idea a turian would betray the collective for their own self-interest is very krogan in mindset, where weakness and selflessness are sins and treachery doesn't arouse surprise nor offence.
Now let's see if second contact will be more fruitful than the first one.
The young turians were not spared from the panic I caused. The hope of rescue quickly morphed into dread as the intercom broadcasted the krogans final moments. Their captivity had not been the most welcoming either and some of their number had died long before I reached the ship.
In order to make thing easier Reila lifted the lockdown so my entrance was not too stressful. But I had to admit it was a bit funny to see the fear in their faces morph into confusion as I turned the corner. It was clear that I had to reorient myself to mortal standards, the extra brain power does little for the innate biases and expectations. The cosmetics of cultivation not only refine the body's beauty in a way that is palpable even for the naked eye but I also had all those quintessences from powerful entities in my chakras.
It is no wonder they froze in confusion, Noctitula's mark in my body made my every move almost hypnotic and as one would expect from the first succubus/dark muse/lady in shadows, it defies incredulity to the point of absurdity, not losing to Orpheus who charmed from rocks to the dead. The barrier between species and gender doesn't even merit a mention. Yanca might be able to just brush it off but mortals with sleeping souls are pretty much helpless. Most of them that is, there is always one that stands head and shoulder above the rest.
"Why, the rumors about the asari's comeliness seem to be in fact understated. Are you an Asari huntress here to rescue us perhaps? I am Gallus Domititus, and in the name of my companions I thank you."
"I am not an Asari," I say deciding to go easy on them since I can hardly expect a alien to understand enough of human physiology to realize how creepy hitting on someone clearly below sixteen is. Besides he is mostly putting on a strong front for the sake of his friends, a natural born leader this young Gallus is. "But I am indeed rescuing you. My name is Zagreus and I am a homo sapiens," I explain bashfully, only too late realizing how the Babylon shard translate it into 'sage man being'.
The turians just stared at me some more, it seems the keratinous plated faces of their species gave them little to no contact and consequently resistance to 'moe'. I have been teased often enough by Tsumiki, Yuki, and recently Reila to realize the effect I have on people.
"…so, do any of you know how to drive this bathtub? I would like to get solid ground among civilized people sooner rather than later."
My words shocked them out of their funks and the young turians moved out of their opened sell as if they had lightning in their heels.
-//-
As luck would have it military service is mandatory in turian society giving me a full crew capable of operating the spaceship. Sure, Reila could do the same instantly but to these people she looks like a rogue artificial intelligence with mind manipulation powers and delusions of godhood and I can say from a position of authority those are rather unpopular red flags with most organic lifeforms.
The reason the Galactic Council did not resort to a robotic army manned by AI to solve their Rachni related problems back then or their current Krogan of today is due to the fiasco of the quarrian fiasco with the geth. This cautionary tale serves to this day as justification to ban all artificial intelligence. So Reila will have to either deal with the hassle of having a body limiting her or keep to the sideline and down low, a decision she is conflicted by.
The turian school excursion group is tense, the signs of dead bodies I left in my wake has put them in edge. They don't know how I could even have done such a thing to begin with, arousing suspicion and paranoia. Well, it is better than me walking around as a nine feet tall demi-god. Mortals are impressed easily and I got enough ass-kissing in Golarion to last me a lifetime… Father in raging heaven, where did this come from? I guess the saying that heroes live in a different world from philosophers and citizens hold some truth. It feels closer to the boundary that alienated Gojo in his youth, something even these sleeping souls yet to awaken to their place in the world can perceive, something something flowers.
Said that these mortals still really came in handy. Instead of using wormholes to travel, ships can achieve faster than light cruise speed thanks to this 'element zero'. Despite its name, it is not actually a chemical element. Ez is generated when solid matter, such as a planet, is affected by the energy of a star going supernova. The material is common in the asteroid debris that orbits neutron stars and pulsars. When subjected to an electrical current, it affects dark matter (hypothetical form of matter that appears not to interact with light or the electromagnetic field) which can be manipulated into a mass effect field, raising or lowering the mass of all objects within that field.
A positive current increases mass, a negative current decrease it. This "mass effect" is used in countless ways, from generating artificial gravity to manufacturing high-strength construction materials. It is most prominently used to enable faster-than-light space travel without causing time dilation. It is no overstatement to say Element Zero is the linchpin of space faring civilizations of the milk way.
That is why trying to walk to the nearest habitable planet would be a challenge even for me who can breathe in a vacuum. To avoid detection the krogan pirates hided in the butt ass end of nowhere beyond where anyone bother to go to avoid detection. the power of the vortex dragon makes it viable but the scales of time for those ancient lizards is not something I care for. So having a crew to mane the ship and give me a visa for the citadel is a real godsent.
Travel at FLS is what you would expect from a sci-fi, a blur of flashes as we run by stars so quickly to perceive them as blurs. Talking with many temporary crew reveals these kids are privileged but still colonials from relatively new settlements, there is no way a krogan pirate ship could successful operate deep in turian held space. According to them that is, they are young and think the world of their parent so I took everything said with a grain of salt.
After two days of travel we reached the Kastruanides system where two turian colonies had been founded… just in time to watch the fireworks.
"Brother!" Reila screamed aloud from every single audio device in the ship at maximum volume, her elegant face displayed in every monitor, a scowl of fury and outrage replacing her usually inviting smile. In my experience this breakdown of composure is only caused by one topic, a leftover from her mortal life. War.
The kids were not faring much better. Understandable, we had the VIP seats to the destruction of their homeworld as the nearby krogan fleet showed the inventiveness that destroyed the ecosystem of their homeworld. Why bother building a Death Star when strategic use of element zero can make any nearby space debris into a bullet? The krogan dropped a meteor o a turian colony, death on a scale capable of making even the gods to break out in a cold sweat.
The shrieks of soul renting despair, whales of outrage, and cry of retribution where the chorum to the spectacle. To them it was a spear of light nailing the planet, followed by a flash pooping in the surface proceeded by a wave. My sight was sharp enough to caught on the little details, how the cities, small and delicate and pristine like models sculped by a crafter careful hand, were either blow to bits by the resulting blast, swallowed by cloud waves of dust and cinder too hot for any mortal being to endure or washed away by resulting tsunamis.
By my calculation I am watching billions die and there isn't much even I can do for them. Reila know this too. She isn't asking me to save them but to avenge them. I look around, Gallus was not watching his world fall apart like his fellow. Instead he was watching us, watching me. Skewering me with his gaze.
Troublesome.
"Sister, you know it as well as I do. At certain points, depending on the parts involved, discourse turn into dispute. This is the way of the world, the rules of nature even you nor I have any power to change as we are. And even if we did I question whether we should, it is only justice that mortals are left to live their brief lives as they choose. We will have to get up the stage and the impact of our actions will affect trillions of lives! What right do we travelers have to dictate how these people owe to live?" I say it aloud because it needs to be said.
We don't get to just walk away. Not from this. We might have the power to start war as we will but we don't get to end it as we please. My virtuous heart won't accept leaving things a mess for others to fix and cultivation will change everything for them.
"… I understand it. But even then, I can't just leave things as they are. If I could stay on the sideline then I wouldn't even be here right now." Reila gave me her answer, what a troublesome little sister. So demanding even though she can do next to nothing without my help.
I stroke my heart flame and the light behind my eyes shined with the light of a birthing star, with this light I skewered the souls of the turians on the command bridge. The spark of Prometheus was meant for his children but considering even animals can cultivate I don't see why the mortal aliens can't become cultivators. I touched their souls and awakened them to their place in the world.
I did more than that, in fact. Much like Rher's moonlight brought out the worst qualities of a person to the surface my light brings out their best, their virtue. Like a sculptor's loving hand, I carved the crude elements of their souls to bring out the promise buried inside the marble. I am nowhere near as gentle as the Titan of molten clay though, to cultivate is to refine and to bring out the truth of a blade one subject it to heat and pressure; all this world and its people, tarnished iron.
The turians screamed, my light is just as scorching and merciless as the Moon.
This light is hope, if it scorches you is because of your lack.
While they regained their bearing, I retrieved the stasis pod I kept Reila's 'body' from my shadow. Followed by resuming my adult form and donning a short one-shouldered chiton I made from the royal purple fabric I had woven while in Yanca's dancing hut and a cloak of feathers from virtuous ravens, some of the original color from before the sun god's scorching being returned. Despite the simplicity of it, together with my muse's silver-bright laurel crown and my heroic glory, I look like a god from myth in the flesh. I stood larger than life, both figuratively and literally due to my heroic stature.
"W-what are you people really?" Gallus asked in true astonishment.
Reila got up from the pod in the meanwhile and take her AI core from my hand.
"We are slipping up for the time being, you descend to Equpilia in search of survivors that can still be saved. I am leaving my sister in your hands for the time being to help with the relief efforts." I say, driving the point home with a pause. "Do not disappoint me."
"And… where are you going then?" another Turian asks.
"Isn't obvious? I am going to deliver justice to those responsible for that," I say while pointing at the destroyed planet.
An electric tension takes over the young Turians, and the flames of vengeance burn bright in their eyes. They clenched their fists, marveling at their newfound strength. They were stronger than a first rank civic cultivators had any right to be. I scorched clean their weaknesses and shined a light on their strength. They no longer felt like the sorry wretches destined to be krogan emergence ration.
"Zagreus, make it hurt. For us. Okay, friend?" Gallus said with audacity his fellows could not muster. Ha, I knew I liked him for a reason!
"Sure, but next time you better not lag behind. We can't let it become a habit." I demanded as space warped and folded and I was swallowed by a silver vortex.
-//-
[AUTOR'S ROOM]
And so first contact start our more violently than most expected but this is the only way Zagreus would step into the spotlight. He is more than capable to act in the shadows so I needed to engender a reason for him to go all out pretty much from the beginning.
I also had to change the date of some events. Almost all historical events in Mass Effect happened in the last 300 years before humanity joined the galactic council. Considering how humanity managed to perform it seems like there is some technological stagnation going on, which fits with the Reaper's agenda of pigeonhole species in a tech tree they dominate.
I think I said this before but people underestimate the scales of things in an astronomic level. It is a common writer's sin of 40K – the scales of conflicts are either too small or become so overblow that it break the powerscale of the setting. Those who know of the Cacodominus, its feats, and its death knells and then compare it to Primarchs' can't help but come out thinking it could defeat all of them at the same time, save the Emperor and ChaosHorus.
Zagreus and Reila are in a peculiar position where they are effectively untouchable and unstoppable but they can only be in one place at time, being no better than a water drop in the sea. I mentioned before but I like to use D&D/Pathfinder spells as power ceiling for mortals while also adding the headcanon that spell casters spelllist from the 7th level and above are restricted to their specialty schools. It helps both in flavor and restricting the advantage wizards have over spontaneous spellcasters with a limited list.
In Zagreus' case Rher's mystery give him access to Interplanetary Teleport, this 9th level spell is a limitless range teleport, the Maximum Technique that displays the true potential of Rher's suffocation of space; Gojo wasn't kidding when he said Rher's power could breach his infinity. The only limitation is that he can only transport himself plus those he is directly touching and he must have a solid grasp of which world he wish to travel to ("the third planet from the sun" is an acceptable destination, but "a habitable world near that bright star" is not). Now, this is the limit of his Logos, but when you add mythical power and heroic glory things go haywire.
The mythical version of this spell is what the elves of pathfinder use to create their 'elf gates' to permanently connect planets to each other. Kind of like the eldar webway. And a hero's heart flame goes without mention.
For those curious about Zagreus raven cloak, search for Brynhildr of Odin Sphere. The color scheme and distribution of her wings are the same.
Fun Fun!
I like your entry into Sci Fi stuff, it will be a fun dichotomy.
I like your entry into Sci Fi stuff, it will be a fun dichotomy.
Aren't the dragon tooth soldiers kind of exponential army. That grows stronger in the roman style
- Location
- Brazil
They are but Zagreus still has to control them otherwise they act as dragon tooth warriors do in legends. This is also what restricted the maximum size of his armies... or did until his mythical powers took care of that. But the problem of control remains, he can create a battalion and given them orders to kill anyone that dares to ender but complex orders are another story. He won't risk leting losing an undead army to solve mortal affairs. What compels him to interfere directly are higher powers mortals can't realistically oppose. The Krogan was a problem but it is one caused by the decision of mortals.
- Location
- Brazil
The real question is on who's gonna be more confused.
The Citadel finding humans and them not being an enlightened society of demi-gods/gods, or the humans finding aliens and it suddenly turns out they got the genre wrong, it wasn't an action packed space opera but a space odyssey with cultivation/eldritch horror.
The Citadel finding humans and them not being an enlightened society of demi-gods/gods, or the humans finding aliens and it suddenly turns out they got the genre wrong, it wasn't an action packed space opera but a space odyssey with cultivation/eldritch horror.
- Pronouns
- TheSilverStar
I don't know why but reading this new chapter makes me want to read a One-Shot First Contact Scenario between The Citadel and Overhaul's Human A-Rays that chose to leave Earth.
Edit:
Edit2: Though I find the idea of Garrus joining the Normandy dressed in an Ancient Greek Outfit hilarious for some reason.
Edit:
I mean, with Zagreus being around the size of a Custodes, they'd probably see him as being part of a Precursor race that created Mass Effect humans in their image. With the existence of various human legends about them being made in the image of God or Gods corroborating the theory.
Edit2: Though I find the idea of Garrus joining the Normandy dressed in an Ancient Greek Outfit hilarious for some reason.
Last edited:
- Location
- Brazil
Turias have always been space italians, from their Roman Republic structure to the fact they are allergic to other species food. Gallus is a wordplay to Gaius Julius Caesar.
Overhaul in the Citadel would be a tragic sight in less than one minute:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcL46NjFDJU&t=20s
Have you ever apologized to a bug before you stepped on it? Sapients are like the mold growing in the back of your fridge to the scale of the universe. They are better off with the Reapers.
- Location
- Brazil
Now that we're in Mass effect and there is the Geth this question I had in my mind suddely becomes more relevant:
How do robots cultivate, or just non-living entities(AIs like Logic before becoming a goddess) in general cultivate? It was shown in Numeria that AI and robots can develop souls, and therefore should be capable of cultivating (they're just mortals after all).
Do their bodies just simply become better? What about when the body is just simply a carrier for consciousness like logic who can just hop on another core for processing?
How do robots cultivate, or just non-living entities(AIs like Logic before becoming a goddess) in general cultivate? It was shown in Numeria that AI and robots can develop souls, and therefore should be capable of cultivating (they're just mortals after all).
Do their bodies just simply become better? What about when the body is just simply a carrier for consciousness like logic who can just hop on another core for processing?
Last edited:
- Location
- washington
Well cultivation takes whats there and makes it more so that. A theoretical god ai should be like a matrioshka brain or some bullshit but with magic too. A primordial ai I dunno destiny bullshit?
- Location
- washington
Unlikely as the geth want to get along with others and that desire will simply become ever greater as they cultivate.
- Location
- Brazil
But the Geth are quite the special AI, aren't they? They are a collective consciousness, each individual Geth is just a tip of the iceberg. I included them because it was a good chance to show how more of Logic's powers and how Ma'habre's souls are structured.
- Location
- washington
I don't think reapers could do it unless outside interference teaches them or they can still indoctrinate cultivators who can then teach them. But that seems unlikely the reapers are very stagnant and don't even actively build their army with the millions of years they've had (billions really) to strip mine solar systems to make more fleets. They just keep what is pretty close to a bare minimum to overwhelm a relatively young galaxy.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
Not only that but due to the way they are made, or each one of them has their method or has to develop their own method, or all of them are like Sol and have two systems(one for the reaped species and the other from their reaper heritage). And thats if they didnt came from a place like earth that has several cultures and religions, and thus different systems.
Then you have the reaper soul that is really powerfull but due to its creation process extremely chaotic, and thus extremely diffcult to give order to it. Not only that but the soul affects the body and the body affects the soul, a reapers soul and powerfull body are inbalanced and in disarray.But if they were to make sense of their metaphysical mess, I can see some extremly powerfull demonic cultivation reaper
ED: Reapers are metaphysical babies, they are unable to control their metaphysical structures like normal mortals.
Last edited:
- Location
- washington
Oh yeah absolutely could see them being freak cultivators but if we are honest them figuring out cultivation is incredibly unlikely. Heck it's possible it'd be hard even if they had Zagreus help with their own stagnancy and their civilization consuming reproduction style shit they have going on they might have the souls of entire civs in them I'm not sure Zagreus could help awaken that stuff too big and alien ish for him as he is.
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
I know, thats the reason I was saying individual reapers and in several cycles of self actualisation. The idea that they will develop something for the collective is imposible.
- Location
- washington
I wonder what Zagreus opinions of quarians will be seeing as they basically self inflicted their own exile due to stupidity and general lack of morals.