If only it was the good (?) Doctor we were waiting on, instead of the looming collision of schemes and titans that'll upend the world.
For seventy-seven days the Nameless One toiled, crafting a suit of armor as the world had never before seen. Deep in the fires of his man-cave he labored to forge a master-weapon, vessel by which Might itself could be imbued into a willing subject. Into this work he poured his sloth, his decadence, and his desire to procrastinate on all things...
Wouldn't it be convenient if we could literally purge undesirable character traits through Artifice, killing two birds with one stone? We'll have to be content with 'just' forging a Magnum Opus and living to use it.
The elevation of a loyal ally to a realm even higher than his own would justify his indolence even as it bound them to his cause utterly.
One suit to doom the Fates, one suit to find them, one suit to bring them all, in darkness forevermore confine them. In the land of his man-cave where the five-o' clock shadow lies...
After issuing so many Dooms of their own, turnabout is fair play, however novel the concept might be to them. Also, is this an answer to the question of whether Nameless has facial hair? They grow up so fast!
Nameless looked up from his anvil. "Stop narrating."
Aurelia pouted. "You didn't like my impression?"
It does undermine the gravity of the moment - spending the hard-
won stolen fruits of our Cultivation to bring forth an avatar of Might - but I laughed. Nameless and Aurelia are surprisingly well-suited for each other.
"I should never have showed you those movies. The books were better."
At least Nameless has good taste. The movies weren't half bad either, though maybe that's different in a world with Mango instead of Apple. I assume we got them from the Rubric Hero's computer? It's really pulling its weight, between this and the Daoist literature on it. More relevant than its owner, who we haven't met!
"But they're adorable, just like me!" She struck a cutesy pose.
"You're not Galadriel," he said patiently. "For one thing, she's even older than you are."
Remarking on a lady's age? A bold strategy, even for the Overlord. Still, Aurelia and Nameless watching the Lord of the Rings is one those scenes that cries out for Addio to do it justice. Do the Fates look elsewhere for inspiration when spinning up a new Age, I wonder?
"Of course!" She exclaimed pertly. "That old hag can't hold a candle to me. I'm beautiful, wise, a natural genius & beloved by all!"
So basically Artanis in Valinor, before all the horrible life experiences and accompanying character development.
"At least Galadriel needed the Ring to go on an ego trip."
"Merely another point in my favor," She said haughtily, splaying fingers across her chest so that Majesty glinted in the forge-light.
If her ego's this inflated before she acquires the power to solo the world, just think how much better it'll be with the Battlesuit! Aurelia's clearly committed to meeting EFB's hubris quota.
"I see a few weeks without my undivided attention has driven you mad. Is it grief? Worry not, I'm almost finished."
Eleven weeks is more than a few, but it's good that the finish line is in sight.
"May I see?" She peeked tentatively over his shoulder. "I wonder what my Dao shall be..."
As an elven princess in magitech armor, clearly it's the Dao of Peak Shadowrun.
"Dao of ripping off Cate Blanchett?"
Why innovate when you can steal? It's worked for Nameless so far.
"Dao of making you a sandwich!" She crammed a sandwich into his mouth.
The surprise sandwich is shaping up to be an Aurelia classic.
"Dwao ofh Narchichissm." He methodically chewed and swallowed. Truth be told, it was extremely delicious.
We picked the wrong Diagrams of the Final Sign for it, but Truthsaying to proclaim the objective worth of a sandwich would be amusing.
"Dao of being a wonderful & loving wife, princess, and (eventual) mother!"
And here we can see another example of Aurelian modesty.
"...You don't need a Dao for that."
It's hard for him to stand and trade verbally with Aurelia, unless he cheats and starts offering affection... and Nameless is nothing if not an adept cheater.
Aurelia blushed. "Darling has been working too hard. Come here, I have a surprise for you..."
...Eventually, despite interminable distractions, the Nebula Battlesuit was finally completed.
A critical hit. Fortunately, Aurelia may have armor going forward.
Nameless gazed upon his magnum opus with no small satisfaction. Its thunderhead-grey surface was inscribed with tightly packed sigils of the Diagram, sharp menace apparent in every meticulously-calligraphed line and dot, and all but glowering with the blue of Truth, a subdual emanation more hum than glare. She who donned its mantle would be dystopia made flesh, the iron fist of his policy, her boot stomping on the face of the so-called Divines for all eternity.
A Magnum Opus deserves at least a paragraph of depiction, and this lives up to the hype. I'd honestly forgotten some of the more ominous, dystopian elements of the Battlesuit's themes, but none of the opuses on offer were sunshine and rainbows.
He was famished, his essence depleted, mind and marrow entombed by weariness. His hammer fell from nerveless fingers and was replaced by the Scepter in a tenuous grip. He made his way to the staging area where Suizhen had captured innumerable Titanic beasts in preparation for this day. Their cultivation bases would feed him, restore him to the fullness of his power, and he never intended to work so hard again.
The final rush to Immortal Awakening might demand more diligence, but the storm to come is more sprint than marathon. Also, good for Suizhen. It's surprising she's able to wrangle Titanic beasts without help, at least of the sort that would be more than drops in the bucket compared to the ocean of our power, but she's grown a lot.
While the elven empire had experienced a renaissance under an aegis of unimpeachable might, the Empire of his birth was spinning out of control like a top knocked free of its axis. The meandering pace of disintegration, once so leisurely as to be almost unnoticeable, had accelerated to a precarious rate. Instability visibly frayed the exterior seams of empire; Overgrowth, banditry, and inter-sect strife claimed lives without surcease, and yet Yong Shen did nothing. Like as not the Emperor welcomed death, and the people cried out for a savior.
Not unexpected, but still worrying to hear. I'm afraid that Yong Shen may die without ever appearing on screen; god only knows what Liefang is doing to him, not to mention the Empire itself. The state of the world is finally coming to resemble the opening narration.
One was forthcoming, but the Overlord would not countenance her rise.
Looks like Just Shoot Them is victorious, then.
If an empire's strength was its cultivators, then the Labyrinth had already been gutted. Zang Kong slumbered, Yong Shen was silent, and the Emperor was a hollow shell of a man. None could save the nation if it plummeted much further along its current course, and only the Emperor was obligated to try. There was the titan of the Sects blithely conquering her rivals, but Nameless had little idea of her disposition and a singular stage I Titan was not power enough to stand against the Fates.
Irrelevant at this point, when Nameless can create Titans from peasants with a flick of his Scepter, but it sounds like she's part of the problem rather than the solution. Might've been more relevant had we visited the Imperial Center. The Emperor being obligated to try by the constraints of the Labyrinth is interesting, but the Fates'll probably twist his efforts to sow more chaos through mismanagement. Hopefully he won't actually die yet. There's nobody strong enough to kill him, but the collateral would be inconvenient.
But he was not out of time yet. The Labyrinth Empire could, by virtue of its sheer enormous inertia, stumble on for two to three more years even if its collapse accelerated according to his worst estimates. The Dao Reserve of Yong would or would not move, but a Clan was more than its Dao Reserve. Even if the mountain stood still, to press against it was folly.
So we have some room to maneuver, unless the Fates have another card left to play. There's always the elven nation and the fragmentary empires overseas. Liefang being prodded into awakening Zang is the biggest concern, but the timetable of Just Shoot Them is much shorter, since we don't need to wait for the Heroine's awakening.
Nameless would not give the fates two years. He would not give the Heroine the chance to awaken with the nations of the world like punch-drunk servants toppled at her feet. One month to finish his preparations. One month to marshal all his powers, and then the forces of the Overlord would spring out from the West to bring earth and Heaven alike under his thrall.
One month is fast, apparently Immortal Awakening's closer than I thought. Sending Suizhen to the Celestial Realm with 'only' Stage 14.5 power might not end well.
He found Suizhen in the training yards, practicing as she so often did.
Maybe after we win she can get good at tea ceremonies and flower arrangement, things she enjoys.
"Sir!" She sprang over, alight with excitement. "Is it ready?"
He schooled his features into careful dejection. "Suizhen. I'm sorry... I failed. It was too hard. I gave up."
It's good that we're playing Nameless, because he'd be frustrating to interact act with.
She gasped, dumbstruck. "S-sir..." Her blade fell from listless hands.
But before it could strike the ground, she'd already recovered, steely determination flashing in her eyes.
The Eyes of Kong allow for exciting levels of literality when it comes to expressions like that.
"Don't worry Sir, I will just train even harder! Titanic Ascension isn't far. I'll reach however many stages it takes to protect you!"
That she still hasn't ascended to Titanhood hammers home how absurd Thrice-Great is, though it looks like twice as many Orbs went into building Nameless. Suizhen's got, what? Sign of the Sword and Cultivation? Bitter irony, if her talent's actually a carbon copy of Zang's. Or maybe I'm off-base and it's all that experimentation that's making her so ridiculous.
Nameless shook his head. "No, I truly have failed... in raising a bodyguard that can detect even the simplest of scams!"
He chortled, withdrawing the Nebula Battlesuit. "Behold, the solution to all our problems! Well, until someone tries to sell you a bridge..."
You can't sell the future Empress of Cultivators a bridge if she already owns them all!
Suizhen stamped the ground petulantly. "Sir, that is not fair! I have been improving, Sir knows it. I was just so worried about Sir!"
We took our sweet time forging the Battlesuit and came out looking pretty haggard. It's good that she cares, and Suizhen has improved by leaps and bounds. At the beginning of the quest, she was an unkempt wanderer too noble to sell her sword for the food she needed. Now she's headed for the top!
"And that is precisely when your enemies will strike," Nameless lectured. "Illusion and deception are two distinct things. Your eyes can pierce the former, but the latter relies on cunning alone."
Nameless being didactic's always nice, but this seems like he's priming her for the
duel of the Fates.
"The latter relies on an open mouth," Suizhen declared confidently. "And my Sword shall solve that before they can utter a word. Speaking of which, who shall we strike first, Sir? Zang Kong, or the Heavens?"
Her own preference is clear from the order of the options. Maybe I spoke too soon about her having changed, because that's some murderhobo wisdom: kill them before they can present moral dilemmas.
Nameless pointed skyward. "I'd like to remove their interference as soon as possible. We also have to worry about people prematurely waking your Patriarch, which is why I'll be on alert as soon as you set off. Once my preparations are complete, I should be able to keep the Elven Kingdom alive even if he wipes out the rest of the world. Afterwards, we'll decide what to do with Zang Kong."
I'm kind of concerned about sending a Hero of the Age to deal with the same Fates that chose her, especially if they learned from their mistakes with Kong. What if Nameless isn't the only one with a killswitch? The previous passage makes me optimistic that they won't be able to turn Suizhen, but her Loyalty still hasn't capped out, unless the Battlesuit counts. Come to think of it, wasn't there a bonus once it hit 10?
Suizhen shifted uncomfortably. "Sir already knows my feelings on the matter."
"Yes," Nameless nodded. "I'm strongly inclined to let you cut him down. But the trillions dwelling within him are innocent, if they exist as he claims. I'd like to avoid obliterating them. There's no telling what will happen if we take out the sky over their heads. He was a hopeful idealist once. If rehabilitation is possible, I'd like to attempt it."
Willingness to kill him if it comes to that is useful in negotiations, since otherwise the Elder Beast of Reason has us over a barrel. But it's likely that his inner world is populated, given the hints we've gotten and the trajectory of his past self, so I'd like to at least try for negotiation. If the Dao of Ripping Off Cate Blanchett fails, then we can do what must be done. Hopefully him being forewarned won't be too severe a strategic disadvantage.
Suizhen smiled sadly. "Now who is the one being scammed? The Patriarch of my clan is an idealist still. He has simply discarded every part of himself that is not the ideal. How many has he murdered in pursuit of his goals? Did he show them the mercy that Sir now extends?"
And if Suizhen strikes down the multitudes in him without ever giving peace a chance, she will be more of a monster than he ever was. Zang himself illustrates that malice is not required to do great harm; indifference to the cost of achieving one's goals is more than adequate. Though, perhaps it's hypocritical to with one hand proclaim 'vengeance, no matter the cost' and with the other deny Suizhen hers...
Nameless nodded in resignation. "If his head is the price of your blade, then I won't stand in the way of your vengeance. Say the word and his life is forfeit."
Nameless already knows Suizhen will defer to him, so it's no skin off his back to give her the illusion of choice.
She pouted. "Without Sir the prospect of my vengeance would be an empty dream. If Sir asks it, I will of course defer to your judgement in this. How can there be things such as prices and favors between us?"
The relationship was initially based on remuneration!
"Ah, trying to get out of the money you owe me? Maybe you're not so hopeless after all..."
"As a bodyguard, I have to be a quick learner. It's because my boss is so lazy."
I do enjoy the snappy banter with Suizhen and Aurelia. It's a shame Xiaoling's been sidelined, but the Ming Reality Effects convert wealth into power if I recall correctly, so there's not much point expending limited wordcount on her. Unless she'd wind up with the Dao of the Green-Eyed Monster? Probably better to give that a miss.
