[Exalted, ?] Most High
- Thread starter Rihaku
- Start date
-
- Tags
- exalted (white wolf)
Guile
Having a really great time right now
Not. Ominous. At all.
Let's hope he is laughing with us.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
It's something of a clusterfuck on all sides involved, isn't it?
I'm now expecting the conversations involved to drain us of enough willpower to impact our upcoming fight.
Suddenly, from the Tall Grass, a Wild Scarlet Empress appears.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
So, clusterfucks across the board then?
Considering you probably planned for one side or another winning, that you have no plans for this means that nobody won.
High Noon
Rihaku
The Internet
High Noon
Insolence.
Cathak Polemgaos had respect for insolence, more than one would think for a man in his position. General, chief warlord of House Cathak, Emissary of the Burning Tree, king of half-a-dozen client states and stalwart of the Realm, Polemgaos knew well that he had no incentive to encourage rebellion.
But he had been an insolent brat, once. That insolent brat had, by the Grace of the Dragons, grown into a tired old man; and though he was weary, still there was some spark of defiance in him. Sometimes it felt like all the energy he had, these days.
As he prepared to step out onto the sands of the arena, his mind wandered. Vaela, bless her heart, was ceremonially oiling and carefully placing each plate of his armor, focus shining through her gaze, biting her lip. After this Tournament concluded, he had another meeting with his biographer, and after all that, the next strategy session. He enjoyed his time with Jeanne of Cynis, the historian-poet who, like her daughter Esertia, defied the tired, hedonistic Cynis norm. They had had their dalliances, in the past. Privately he wondered whether it was his daughter he would be facing in this tournament. But Jeanne had never told him, and he'd never asked.
The general staff, however, he would not enjoy. News from the front was ever the same, especially these days. The Realm was an edifice in decline, like sandstone withering before the hurricane storm. A day's abrasion might seem minuscule, but add ten thousand days together and! - what you thought was stone, would slide out right from under your feet.
He would celebrate his hundred thousandth day, soon. He did not relish the thought, but nor did he look towards the future without hope. He was not Lung Feng Zao, who had coldly calculated the end of the world and endlessly maneuvered only to delay it. There was, still, somewhere buried beneath the iron and fire, something of the brat he'd been, in his heart. Perhaps that was why the Empress had never taken him to her bedchambers.
He felt, again, the ripping loneliness, the longing for Her Majesty that so tormented him. It was not shameful for a man to love his Monarch, and he knew better than most the capacity of her wiles. That she had denied him, not because she thought his children would be weak, but only to prod him forward, towards greater heights, more dutiful service, more magnificent glory. Far inferior consorts she'd taken to her bed, in the hopes that they'd breed strong. He knew that she'd never intended to ever indulge him, that he would go to his grave with his heart's desire unfulfilled, and yet- and yet-
His heart was unquiet on the matter. The Tepet girl had not helped. Her wiles, too, he understood - that she sought to distract him, to un-man him for her champion - but she had inherited something of Her Majesty's inexpressible allure. Her form danced before his eyes like black spots from a drunken haze.
He saw his face mirrored in the surface of a vambrace, polished to an utter sheen. How old he was now. He resembled a mortal of nearly forty years. His face had yielded to wrinkles that it'd resisted for nigh on two centuries. At the same time, Ironscale, his armor did not suit the polished appearance at all. Despite himself, he smiled.
How ridiculous we are, old friend, he thought to the armor, and felt its warm, amused sentiment in response.
Vaela took the vambrace and attached it, tightening the final strap, and earnestly wished him good luck, her violet eyes wide with concern. He gave her a smile and a reassuring nod, and strode out into the blazing noon.
High and far and clear the sky stretched today, the sun a clenched fist of heat that smote all beneath its regard. Aspected to Fire, Polemgaos felt merely the velvet glove, and he raised the long barbed spear in his hand in a salute to the audience. They responded in kind, many imitating the salute, hailing him with a chorus of celebratory cheers, as if his victory already were assured.
He smiled, and set his stance, flexing his arms and knees, dropping his weight down onto his hips, low towards the ground. The spear was a flashing blur in his hand, glinting and catching the sun, as he warmed up.
Out came the challenger, Sesus Ulyssian. In this single-bracket tournament they were all portentously equals, but the boy would have much to prove before the crowd thought him a victor. Polemgaos could not quell the small churl of spite that flickered through him, as he remembered the Tepet girl draping herself across this boy.
Far inferior consorts, she'd taken to her bed...
He gritted his teeth and set his jaw. Inappropriate. He'd not even taken the measure of this one on the battlefield, and already he was rushing to judgement. That girl had affected him more than he'd thought. How lucky the Sesus boy was, to have a lover so cunning and beautiful as that.
Sesus Ulyssian. Black hair, black eyes, a glint of darkest blue in the noonday brilliance. Perhaps that was simply the blue-black reflecting off his Storm Armor, the lacquered plate of Admiral Zao. Zao's armor, loaned to his protege to destroy the Immaculate Brotherhood that had presumed to declare his successor Anathema.
Ulyssian stood, and nodded perfunctorily towards the crowd, who showed him little favor. His second was absent from the stands, supposedly under the weather. Polemgaos wondered what she was up to.
The boy set his blade out before him, a razored bar of gleaming sunlight, and ran his naked grip across its edge. Blood pooled faintly, and suddenly the fires of the boy's anima flared, blazing white before they plunged into the blade. It glowed, seeming to rival the brilliance of even the sun, a heat with no warmth, all its energy condensed into pure cutting power.
Polemgaos had done his research. The boy had dismantled that Brotherhood with utter and effortless ease. He was no weakling, not even by the standards of Polemgaos, who had hunted the Lion In Black. Zao had trained his apprentice well, had arranged for him a consort that could be strong where he was weak, had entered him in the Admiralty slot of this tournament over the objections of his own students and peers.
Why did he had so much invested in this, this Sesus Ulyssian?
The General of House Cathak wanted to know.
But not so badly that he would waste time and effort on probing attacks. No, end this quickly, with neither mercy nor undue excess of force. That was his style, and he would do no less for every worthy opponent. The boy, after all, had gone through all the trouble of rigging this first fight with Polemgaos. Who was he to deny Sesus Ulyssian the full Polemgaos experience?
So he smiled, not unkindly, and bowed, and struck.
The sands exploded. The force of his launching stance cratered the dune below him, half-melting it into glass, and all around him sprays and rivulets of sand fell, ribbonlike, through the air. Combat at speed was like stepping into a sideways realm. The wind here was a numb howl against his ears, and spilled blood did not fall except with steeply trickling slowness, paint leaking down reality's canvas.
The world froze, or moved through molasses; all but the two of them.
Cathak Polemgaos, and Sesus Ulyssian.
Halfway through his lunge, lance-prong aimed squarely at his enemy, Polemgaos realized what Ulyssian was doing. The Sesus had reacted to the starting bell half an instant before, but had deliberately delayed his own attack, seeking to strike precisely in the moment that Polemgaos opened. Raw speed, channeled into raw skill: that was Polemgaos' first impression of the boy. He was not as powerful as Polemgaos, not even remotely so, but his swordplay was no less dextrous.
Was, if anything, slightly more. Their weapons met, and the wishmetal blade of the boy's longsword swatted aside Polemgaos' spear, deflecting the terrible stone-rupturing force behind that blow into open air. Polemgaos moved to recover, to withdraw inward, whipping around the cruel bludgeoning edge of Irontail to smash the boy's ribs.
But that action he had to abort, as the longsword darted forth to threaten his throat. Instead he swerved, turning that threat into a glancing cut. Already the next attack was coming, and the next and the next, the sword a white sickle of sunlight, reaping momentum for its master, closing off all options for escape.
That first exchange, Polemgaos thought, might have decided it. The boy had seized an advantage - not by leagues, but not by inches either - and was unlikely to yield it unless, Polemgaos got lucky. He had been favored by the Dragons, this he knew well, but the General did not think They would intercede for so trifling a matter as this. His strikes were more devastating, but it meant nothing if they could not connect. The boy would wear him down, or force him into a mistake and then launch the culling blow.
Something roused within him then, the instinct to slaughter, the underdog's flare, and he surged forward, pressing the attack, very nearly driving the boy back, an onslaught like falling meteors. But the boy was too poised, too capable, striking away each blow with the minimum requisite force, each action feeding invariably into the next, until it seemed to Polemgaos that his own attacks had been part of some grand pattern, some invisible design, that the boy had merely anticipated. Now he was mid-air, absent any leverage, over-extended, and the gleaming edge of the Sesus' sword was close enough to take off his head if he started Daana'd's Spin.
Then came the killing blow, thrust forward, the light from that point so sharp that his eye watered. Cathak Polemgaos wondered if the boy would pull it, then decided that he would not wonder. The Writ of the Flaming Bough seared itself off his right shoulder, simmering into cinders. A sudden tearing pain seized him, and he moved. Like leaves in autumn, like fire in spring, he moved with the inevitable pace of the seasons, and the attack, flawless in execution, passed through the space where his eye would have been.
Cathak Polemgaos saw Sesus Ulyssian's unsurprised gaze. He saw, also, the second strike, materializing as if from nothing, as if the boy's sword were an unripe flower suddenly revealed to bloom.
A strike with the flat of the blade, but there was enough annihilation in that stroke to erase the little gods of Creation from its path. The air thrummed, ten million dying shrieks, and Irontail rose, rose with all of Polemgaos' formidable and ancient power, it harnessed every droplet of the vast ocean within, only to intercept that blow, for to touch it was death, utter and total-
In that moment, Cathak Polemgaos understood two things. First, that "Sesus Ulyssian" was Blood of the Shogun, the son of Lung Feng Zao. That explained everything about the child, for no ordinary Dragon-Blood of his level could do what he had done.
Second, that Ulyssian was curious as to the nature of Polemgaos' supposed "immortality," the Phoenix Blaze Revival. He wanted to see it demonstrated, wanted to know the trick. He was unaware that his strike was too powerful, that it would simply kill Polemgaos.
Irontail was brushed aside, and even the freakish luck that had saved Polemgaos in the past, did not seem to arrest the force of that blow. It descended like the closing curtain of the world upon him. His ignominous exit from the stage.
Insolence, he thought, grinning at the sheer remarkable irony of it, grinning as his shoulder capsized and his organs shattered and his spine broke in two. Simple insolence.
---
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and the drift of the sea;
And dust of the laboring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love,
With life before and after
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man.
From the winds of the north and the south,
They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labor and thought,
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and space for delight,
And beauty, and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.
- Atalanta in Calydon
Rest in peace, Cathak Polemgaos. Your story, has come to an End.
---
Welp.
Annihilating Stroke with 53 Initiative and Polemgaos Crashed, generating 43 levels of damage, enough almost to kill a maxed Ox-Body Solar twice over. Even if he'd taken 5 levels of crippling wound, Polemgaos wouldn't have been able to survive; his "immortality" was just an illusion that made him seem to have 25 Health Levels when in reality he had 35. Since this is the first time that he used Annihilating Stroke in a major fight, Ulyssian wasn't quite used to it, and he did want to see how Polemgaos revived. His metis generated curiosity; his hubris, seeing that he had an advantage, sought to fulfill it, and - whoops.
Strange that Ambition permitted it, though. Is its wisdom, harnessed from the greater Odyssial, seeking to fulfill some obscure purpose? Always it bends its wielder towards Odyssial's ends...
[ ] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse - You do not believe you will be prosecuted for murder, as accidents do happen in full-contact martial demonstrations, but it would be best to be safe, as House Cathak will definitely angle for it, and you have no House to protect you (or do you? The Sesus may approve). Since you honestly did not intend to kill him, that fact will be made apparent, and you will hopefully somehow be able to turn this whole affair towards your advantage, though it makes you guilty just to think about that. Remember, these choices also determine Ulyssian's characterization. This is a chance to break away from Odyssial that was, who had Heartlessness 10, and who would see firstly a demonstration of much-needed strength.
[ ] "I meant to do that." - Of course. Perhaps this was why Zao sent you in the first place; he is "making his play," and the opening hand is all aces. What faction would dare defy Lung Feng Zao, who wields not only his formidable self, and the Admiralty, but a prodigy of such incalculable power as this!? May spark the Realm Civil War, but that was probably going to happen anyway, and at least this way it is from a position of strength, and on your own terms - sort of?
[ ] Write-In - Write-ins benefit from a huge effectiveness bonus. However, note that the existing options are already pretty effective, for what their purposes are turned towards!
Additionally, you can continue to vote for the prior decision point, Forbearance vs. Counter-Infiltration. Certainly it would send a strong message, no matter which option you pick, for you to forfeit the tournament after this debacle: either you are truly remorseful, and will not seek glory on this field you've stained with blood, or Zao made his point and the frivolities are over. Similarly, whether you intended to kill him or accidentally did, surely Mnemon Ayala and Fei Ling will not dare openly antagonize a swordsman capable of slaughtering Cathak Polemgaos.
Insolence.
Cathak Polemgaos had respect for insolence, more than one would think for a man in his position. General, chief warlord of House Cathak, Emissary of the Burning Tree, king of half-a-dozen client states and stalwart of the Realm, Polemgaos knew well that he had no incentive to encourage rebellion.
But he had been an insolent brat, once. That insolent brat had, by the Grace of the Dragons, grown into a tired old man; and though he was weary, still there was some spark of defiance in him. Sometimes it felt like all the energy he had, these days.
As he prepared to step out onto the sands of the arena, his mind wandered. Vaela, bless her heart, was ceremonially oiling and carefully placing each plate of his armor, focus shining through her gaze, biting her lip. After this Tournament concluded, he had another meeting with his biographer, and after all that, the next strategy session. He enjoyed his time with Jeanne of Cynis, the historian-poet who, like her daughter Esertia, defied the tired, hedonistic Cynis norm. They had had their dalliances, in the past. Privately he wondered whether it was his daughter he would be facing in this tournament. But Jeanne had never told him, and he'd never asked.
The general staff, however, he would not enjoy. News from the front was ever the same, especially these days. The Realm was an edifice in decline, like sandstone withering before the hurricane storm. A day's abrasion might seem minuscule, but add ten thousand days together and! - what you thought was stone, would slide out right from under your feet.
He would celebrate his hundred thousandth day, soon. He did not relish the thought, but nor did he look towards the future without hope. He was not Lung Feng Zao, who had coldly calculated the end of the world and endlessly maneuvered only to delay it. There was, still, somewhere buried beneath the iron and fire, something of the brat he'd been, in his heart. Perhaps that was why the Empress had never taken him to her bedchambers.
He felt, again, the ripping loneliness, the longing for Her Majesty that so tormented him. It was not shameful for a man to love his Monarch, and he knew better than most the capacity of her wiles. That she had denied him, not because she thought his children would be weak, but only to prod him forward, towards greater heights, more dutiful service, more magnificent glory. Far inferior consorts she'd taken to her bed, in the hopes that they'd breed strong. He knew that she'd never intended to ever indulge him, that he would go to his grave with his heart's desire unfulfilled, and yet- and yet-
His heart was unquiet on the matter. The Tepet girl had not helped. Her wiles, too, he understood - that she sought to distract him, to un-man him for her champion - but she had inherited something of Her Majesty's inexpressible allure. Her form danced before his eyes like black spots from a drunken haze.
He saw his face mirrored in the surface of a vambrace, polished to an utter sheen. How old he was now. He resembled a mortal of nearly forty years. His face had yielded to wrinkles that it'd resisted for nigh on two centuries. At the same time, Ironscale, his armor did not suit the polished appearance at all. Despite himself, he smiled.
How ridiculous we are, old friend, he thought to the armor, and felt its warm, amused sentiment in response.
Vaela took the vambrace and attached it, tightening the final strap, and earnestly wished him good luck, her violet eyes wide with concern. He gave her a smile and a reassuring nod, and strode out into the blazing noon.
High and far and clear the sky stretched today, the sun a clenched fist of heat that smote all beneath its regard. Aspected to Fire, Polemgaos felt merely the velvet glove, and he raised the long barbed spear in his hand in a salute to the audience. They responded in kind, many imitating the salute, hailing him with a chorus of celebratory cheers, as if his victory already were assured.
He smiled, and set his stance, flexing his arms and knees, dropping his weight down onto his hips, low towards the ground. The spear was a flashing blur in his hand, glinting and catching the sun, as he warmed up.
Out came the challenger, Sesus Ulyssian. In this single-bracket tournament they were all portentously equals, but the boy would have much to prove before the crowd thought him a victor. Polemgaos could not quell the small churl of spite that flickered through him, as he remembered the Tepet girl draping herself across this boy.
Far inferior consorts, she'd taken to her bed...
He gritted his teeth and set his jaw. Inappropriate. He'd not even taken the measure of this one on the battlefield, and already he was rushing to judgement. That girl had affected him more than he'd thought. How lucky the Sesus boy was, to have a lover so cunning and beautiful as that.
Sesus Ulyssian. Black hair, black eyes, a glint of darkest blue in the noonday brilliance. Perhaps that was simply the blue-black reflecting off his Storm Armor, the lacquered plate of Admiral Zao. Zao's armor, loaned to his protege to destroy the Immaculate Brotherhood that had presumed to declare his successor Anathema.
Ulyssian stood, and nodded perfunctorily towards the crowd, who showed him little favor. His second was absent from the stands, supposedly under the weather. Polemgaos wondered what she was up to.
The boy set his blade out before him, a razored bar of gleaming sunlight, and ran his naked grip across its edge. Blood pooled faintly, and suddenly the fires of the boy's anima flared, blazing white before they plunged into the blade. It glowed, seeming to rival the brilliance of even the sun, a heat with no warmth, all its energy condensed into pure cutting power.
Polemgaos had done his research. The boy had dismantled that Brotherhood with utter and effortless ease. He was no weakling, not even by the standards of Polemgaos, who had hunted the Lion In Black. Zao had trained his apprentice well, had arranged for him a consort that could be strong where he was weak, had entered him in the Admiralty slot of this tournament over the objections of his own students and peers.
Why did he had so much invested in this, this Sesus Ulyssian?
The General of House Cathak wanted to know.
But not so badly that he would waste time and effort on probing attacks. No, end this quickly, with neither mercy nor undue excess of force. That was his style, and he would do no less for every worthy opponent. The boy, after all, had gone through all the trouble of rigging this first fight with Polemgaos. Who was he to deny Sesus Ulyssian the full Polemgaos experience?
So he smiled, not unkindly, and bowed, and struck.
The sands exploded. The force of his launching stance cratered the dune below him, half-melting it into glass, and all around him sprays and rivulets of sand fell, ribbonlike, through the air. Combat at speed was like stepping into a sideways realm. The wind here was a numb howl against his ears, and spilled blood did not fall except with steeply trickling slowness, paint leaking down reality's canvas.
The world froze, or moved through molasses; all but the two of them.
Cathak Polemgaos, and Sesus Ulyssian.
Halfway through his lunge, lance-prong aimed squarely at his enemy, Polemgaos realized what Ulyssian was doing. The Sesus had reacted to the starting bell half an instant before, but had deliberately delayed his own attack, seeking to strike precisely in the moment that Polemgaos opened. Raw speed, channeled into raw skill: that was Polemgaos' first impression of the boy. He was not as powerful as Polemgaos, not even remotely so, but his swordplay was no less dextrous.
Was, if anything, slightly more. Their weapons met, and the wishmetal blade of the boy's longsword swatted aside Polemgaos' spear, deflecting the terrible stone-rupturing force behind that blow into open air. Polemgaos moved to recover, to withdraw inward, whipping around the cruel bludgeoning edge of Irontail to smash the boy's ribs.
But that action he had to abort, as the longsword darted forth to threaten his throat. Instead he swerved, turning that threat into a glancing cut. Already the next attack was coming, and the next and the next, the sword a white sickle of sunlight, reaping momentum for its master, closing off all options for escape.
That first exchange, Polemgaos thought, might have decided it. The boy had seized an advantage - not by leagues, but not by inches either - and was unlikely to yield it unless, Polemgaos got lucky. He had been favored by the Dragons, this he knew well, but the General did not think They would intercede for so trifling a matter as this. His strikes were more devastating, but it meant nothing if they could not connect. The boy would wear him down, or force him into a mistake and then launch the culling blow.
Something roused within him then, the instinct to slaughter, the underdog's flare, and he surged forward, pressing the attack, very nearly driving the boy back, an onslaught like falling meteors. But the boy was too poised, too capable, striking away each blow with the minimum requisite force, each action feeding invariably into the next, until it seemed to Polemgaos that his own attacks had been part of some grand pattern, some invisible design, that the boy had merely anticipated. Now he was mid-air, absent any leverage, over-extended, and the gleaming edge of the Sesus' sword was close enough to take off his head if he started Daana'd's Spin.
Then came the killing blow, thrust forward, the light from that point so sharp that his eye watered. Cathak Polemgaos wondered if the boy would pull it, then decided that he would not wonder. The Writ of the Flaming Bough seared itself off his right shoulder, simmering into cinders. A sudden tearing pain seized him, and he moved. Like leaves in autumn, like fire in spring, he moved with the inevitable pace of the seasons, and the attack, flawless in execution, passed through the space where his eye would have been.
Cathak Polemgaos saw Sesus Ulyssian's unsurprised gaze. He saw, also, the second strike, materializing as if from nothing, as if the boy's sword were an unripe flower suddenly revealed to bloom.
A strike with the flat of the blade, but there was enough annihilation in that stroke to erase the little gods of Creation from its path. The air thrummed, ten million dying shrieks, and Irontail rose, rose with all of Polemgaos' formidable and ancient power, it harnessed every droplet of the vast ocean within, only to intercept that blow, for to touch it was death, utter and total-
In that moment, Cathak Polemgaos understood two things. First, that "Sesus Ulyssian" was Blood of the Shogun, the son of Lung Feng Zao. That explained everything about the child, for no ordinary Dragon-Blood of his level could do what he had done.
Second, that Ulyssian was curious as to the nature of Polemgaos' supposed "immortality," the Phoenix Blaze Revival. He wanted to see it demonstrated, wanted to know the trick. He was unaware that his strike was too powerful, that it would simply kill Polemgaos.
Irontail was brushed aside, and even the freakish luck that had saved Polemgaos in the past, did not seem to arrest the force of that blow. It descended like the closing curtain of the world upon him. His ignominous exit from the stage.
Insolence, he thought, grinning at the sheer remarkable irony of it, grinning as his shoulder capsized and his organs shattered and his spine broke in two. Simple insolence.
---
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and the drift of the sea;
And dust of the laboring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love,
With life before and after
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man.
From the winds of the north and the south,
They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labor and thought,
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and space for delight,
And beauty, and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.
- Atalanta in Calydon
Rest in peace, Cathak Polemgaos. Your story, has come to an End.
---
Welp.
Annihilating Stroke with 53 Initiative and Polemgaos Crashed, generating 43 levels of damage, enough almost to kill a maxed Ox-Body Solar twice over. Even if he'd taken 5 levels of crippling wound, Polemgaos wouldn't have been able to survive; his "immortality" was just an illusion that made him seem to have 25 Health Levels when in reality he had 35. Since this is the first time that he used Annihilating Stroke in a major fight, Ulyssian wasn't quite used to it, and he did want to see how Polemgaos revived. His metis generated curiosity; his hubris, seeing that he had an advantage, sought to fulfill it, and - whoops.
Strange that Ambition permitted it, though. Is its wisdom, harnessed from the greater Odyssial, seeking to fulfill some obscure purpose? Always it bends its wielder towards Odyssial's ends...
[ ] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse - You do not believe you will be prosecuted for murder, as accidents do happen in full-contact martial demonstrations, but it would be best to be safe, as House Cathak will definitely angle for it, and you have no House to protect you (or do you? The Sesus may approve). Since you honestly did not intend to kill him, that fact will be made apparent, and you will hopefully somehow be able to turn this whole affair towards your advantage, though it makes you guilty just to think about that. Remember, these choices also determine Ulyssian's characterization. This is a chance to break away from Odyssial that was, who had Heartlessness 10, and who would see firstly a demonstration of much-needed strength.
[ ] "I meant to do that." - Of course. Perhaps this was why Zao sent you in the first place; he is "making his play," and the opening hand is all aces. What faction would dare defy Lung Feng Zao, who wields not only his formidable self, and the Admiralty, but a prodigy of such incalculable power as this!? May spark the Realm Civil War, but that was probably going to happen anyway, and at least this way it is from a position of strength, and on your own terms - sort of?
[ ] Write-In - Write-ins benefit from a huge effectiveness bonus. However, note that the existing options are already pretty effective, for what their purposes are turned towards!
Additionally, you can continue to vote for the prior decision point, Forbearance vs. Counter-Infiltration. Certainly it would send a strong message, no matter which option you pick, for you to forfeit the tournament after this debacle: either you are truly remorseful, and will not seek glory on this field you've stained with blood, or Zao made his point and the frivolities are over. Similarly, whether you intended to kill him or accidentally did, surely Mnemon Ayala and Fei Ling will not dare openly antagonize a swordsman capable of slaughtering Cathak Polemgaos.
Last edited:
SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
welp
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
Welp.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
...
Wow
So, uh, we just completely trivialized one of the Realm's Stongest Warriors.
Uh, at least we're Essence 4 now!
[X] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse.
[X] Withdraw from the Tournament.
Because... Uh, it's True.
We didn't intend to kill a man who was one of the Realm's greatest champions, he had just been hyped so much and so impressively that we thought this was the minimum amount of strength needed to subdue him.
Wow
So, uh, we just completely trivialized one of the Realm's Stongest Warriors.
Uh, at least we're Essence 4 now!
[X] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse.
[X] Withdraw from the Tournament.
Because... Uh, it's True.
We didn't intend to kill a man who was one of the Realm's greatest champions, he had just been hyped so much and so impressively that we thought this was the minimum amount of strength needed to subdue him.
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Rihaku
The Internet
Well, you got ~somewhat lucky on the first exchange, and he only got slightly above average luck, which means you inflicted 25 Withering Damage on him, Crashing him, and giving you 53 Initiative... From there, your normal decisive attacks would do massive damage, so even when he perfectly dodged one of them, your second attack, created with Peony Blossom Attack and augmented with a full Rising Sun Slash + Excellent Strike Combo (The cost-reduction of The King Stands Against was really helpful here), and the hideously broken Annihilating Stroke... kind of obliterated him.
Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
- Location
- In transit
Well, we sent a man to death. Don't think Udy realized that most people don't actually have a way to resurrect even if they ARE supposedly immortal heroes. As always it seems the first rule of immortality is that you will die.
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Rihaku
The Internet
Well, Ulyssian was actually pretty sure that this attack would be enough damage to kill him (he thought Polemgaos only had 25 Health Levels, against an attack doing like 102 dice of damage), he just thought that Cathak Polemgaos had, y'know, contingencies for that sort of thing! Turns out those contingencies just weren't enough...
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Yeah.
Wow.
On the plus side, this is so insanely off the charts that Nobody is going to believe we're Anathema after this. Because this guy was more than a match for elders, and by Flame's argument, We only Exalted two months ago.
I... I think he's honestly a victim of his own hype here--he was so built up that Ulyssian ICly assumed he needed to go all in... But he was basically a wooden horse that caught fucking fire the first time someone threw a torch on it.
The fact that there was that bit about him "Rising from the grave" was what really convinced Ulyssian to go All In, because he needed the win, and surely he would just recover from a single killing blow, right?
Deadly Snark
Tryhard As Fuck
[X] Demonstrate Massive and Total Remorse.
Yeah this was not expected.
Ulyssian: ''Huuh, wasn't he supposed to be immortal? Well shit.''
Yeah this was not expected.
Ulyssian: ''Huuh, wasn't he supposed to be immortal? Well shit.''
Rihaku
The Internet
Mhm, basically; though, the dichotomy is more that Ulyssian completely underestimated his own strength, and Ambition's. This was his first serious fight after so much training, the first time he actually struck to kill!
Never underestimate Odyssial, people!
Nah, he would have turned if she'd acted against the Best Interests of the Realm. He was an insolent one to the end.
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Van Ropen
Angry, angry about elves.
Damn. Use of his PoV to make the reader like the dude was really well done. I'm kinda sad he's dead.
Should be Calydon.
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