[Exalted] The Dragon's Spite

[13th Bee]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

I don't really care about the spell, but this is the betrayal that's the least sickening.

 

[kichithewolf]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

The other two are a bit too much, personally.

[X] Commanding the Earth's Bones - Just the gods have power over Creation, through stolen power Rena can order the ground to sculpt itself and rise or fall. She can call up walls or create chasms.

 

[Yaga]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

[X] Watchful Beauteous Statue - It is a miracle of the gods that they can hear prayers and respond to them. Taking the power for herself, Rena can see and speak through stone images of herself.

Commanding the Earth's Bones seems more generally useful, but this plays better to Rena's actual personality and skillset, and also it's way more funny.

 

[Xepheria]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

Least worst betrayal tbh. Telling us to stop accumulating pretty beings from beyond the veil for our collection? Unacceptable! 0/10 husbando material.

[X] Death of Purple Irises - Tearing the power from the stolen divine objects, Rena can cast it out as a cloud of fragments of power that take the form of purple irises. They can cut down a charging horde, and flowers grow where they fall.

A e s t h e t i c c

 

[fitzgerald]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.


[X] Watchful Beauteous Statue - It is a miracle of the gods that they can hear prayers and respond to them. Taking the power for herself, Rena can see and speak through stone images of herself.

 

[veekie]

You know what this is. Your fingers brush the surface of the cigar-shaped object. If you're right... and yes, with a twist, it unscrews from the centre, and starts to hum and glow.

This is a jadescroll. There's a Shogunate seal on it, but that doesn't mean much; these things last forever. They can be at the centre of an exploding manse and will probably make it out intact. You seal it back up hastily, before anyone else can notice the light.

Honestly, you don't know what it is. But at the very least, you want your hands on a jadescroll. Even if its contents prove worthless, you can still wipe the text and use it yourself if you can get your hands on one of the pens. And if it doesn't prove worthless... well. It's practically criminal to leave it mouldering down here. Your eyes drift to the fire. Look at how poorly Yanbu kept her scrolls safe.

She'll try to stop you taking it out. It would be a breach of hospitality to take it. And right now, it's not like you can tuck it up your sleeves. Because you don't have sleeves.

Oh well. You are not leaving it behind.

Click to shrink...

...she did what I think she did?


[X] Neiko, your faithful maid who fled with you. She was loyal to the end, even when everyone else had turned on you. But you needed a woman with the same build to leave in that burning building to shake the Immaculate hunters.

[X] Twisted Divine Vessels - A god's panoply is a shell for a being to fill. Rena creates a number of monsters from the dregs of power that remain within her new cuffs. These parodies of the divine form obey her.

 

[Happerry]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

[X] Watchful Beauteous Statue - It is a miracle of the gods that they can hear prayers and respond to them. Taking the power for herself, Rena can see and speak through stone images of herself.

 

[NSMS]

Which option is most promotive towards keeping birb-boy as part of our harem? Because that is clearly the correct answer here.

 

[Camellia]

...she did what I think she did?

Click to shrink...

Well, she might have swallowed it.

 

[Compellor]

Aleph makes some good points, but I feel like Koizumi is too much within what we expect of Rena. Chiro's story might tell us something new. Who was our friend? How many decades did we know her before you betrayed her?

[X] Chiro Koharu, your friend since childhood, who never abandoned you even when the rumours started. You fed her to a prince of chaos in return for many strange secrets and a contract of power.

A e s t h e t i c c

Click to shrink...

[X] Death of Purple Irises - Tearing the power from the stolen divine objects, Rena can cast it out as a cloud of fragments of power that take the form of purple irises. They can cut down a charging horde, and flowers grow where they fall.

 

[VagueZ]

[x] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

I mean, yes, I get Compellor's point, but it's just too perfect to not do.

[x] Commanding the Earth's Bones - Just the gods have power over Creation, through stolen power Rena can order the ground to sculpt itself and rise or fall. She can call up walls or create chasms.

This is just the Toph pick for me.

 

[Brainarius]

Choose one person you cherished and betrayed.

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

Choose a Spell

All these spells have the Means of "stolen godly power".

[X] Commanding the Earth's Bones - Just the gods have power over Creation, through stolen power Rena can order the ground to sculpt itself and rise or fall. She can call up walls or create chasms.

 

[Imrix]

[X] Neiko, your faithful maid who fled with you. She was loyal to the end, even when everyone else had turned on you. But you needed a woman with the same build to leave in that burning building to shake the Immaculate hunters.

A reminder: This quest started with the premise of Rena as an evil sorceress hungry for power. Since then she's come across mostly as an inveterate hedonist. I choose to take this opportunity to push for her to have done something truly objectionable, because it is objectionable. I don't want to pussyfoot around the 'evil' in 'evil sorceress'.

[X] Death of Purple Irises - Tearing the power from the stolen divine objects, Rena can cast it out as a cloud of fragments of power that take the form of purple irises. They can cut down a charging horde, and flowers grow where they fall.

We lack a blasting spell for simple, straightforward solutions, and filling that gap in our reportoire is the sort of move Rena might take to move forward from her defeat.

 

[Shane_357]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

[X] Death of Purple Irises - Tearing the power from the stolen divine objects, Rena can cast it out as a cloud of fragments of power that take the form of purple irises. They can cut down a charging horde, and flowers grow where they fall.

 

[Rotekian]

[X] Watchful Beauteous Statue - It is a miracle of the gods that they can hear prayers and respond to them. Taking the power for herself, Rena can see and speak through stone images of herself.

This seems like an earth varient of one of my favourite spells. It rewards the caster for being prepared and setting up the statues in useful locations with the fastest long distance communication possible.

 

[Varder]

[X] Chiro Koharu, your friend since childhood, who never abandoned you even when the rumours started. You fed her to a prince of chaos in return for many strange secrets and a contract of power.
[X] Neiko, your faithful maid who fled with you. She was loyal to the end, even when everyone else had turned on you. But you needed a woman with the same build to leave in that burning building to shake the Immaculate hunters.

Because evil sorceress must be evil. Rena must not be only evil, but she still must be. That is the whole point of her character.

 

[EarthScorpion]

My perspective on this Choice of Betrayal is that the other two choices make our protagonist seem like some kind of unforgivable monster. This option allows her to exist as someone who is merely an individual that contravenes acceptable standards of behavior and is willing to destroy those who oppose her.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, Ferem is the least objectionable betrayal here for me.

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I don't really care about the spell, but this is the betrayal that's the least sickening.

Click to shrink...

The other two are a bit too much, personally.

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Least worst betrayal tbh. Telling us to stop accumulating pretty beings from beyond the veil for our collection? Unacceptable! 0/10 husbando material.

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I'm just isolating these comments, because they're fascinating in their own way.

What makes "I murdered the man I loved because he found out I was lying to him about not actually having given up practising evil magic and consorting with soul eating monsters" so much more acceptable than the other two?

An interesting insight into voter psychology, perhaps?

Which option is most promotive towards keeping birb-boy as part of our harem? Because that is clearly the correct answer here.

Click to shrink...

Weeeeeeeell, some people might say it might not be the option that means she has an established tendency to murder lovers who find out too much about her secrets. Even if she loved them. And she did love him - that's why its such a notable betrayal.

As Imrix says...

A reminder: This quest started with the premise of Rena as an evil sorceress hungry for power. Since then she's come across mostly as an inveterate hedonist. I choose to take this opportunity to push for her to have done something truly objectionable, because it is objectionable. I don't want to pussyfoot around the 'evil' in 'evil sorceress'.

Click to shrink...

... and none of these options are intended as a "least bad" thing, except if voters believe that murdering someone you're in love with is innately less bad than murdering a friend or a faithful servant. Which really says more about the voter than Rena.

 

[The Nomad]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

"Oops"

[X] Twisted Divine Vessels - A god's panoply is a shell for a being to fill. Rena creates a number of monsters from the dregs of power that remain within her new cuffs. These parodies of the divine form obey her.

Minions, minions, minions everywhere!

 

[toxinvictory]

[X] Neiko, your faithful maid who fled with you. She was loyal to the end, even when everyone else had turned on you. But you needed a woman with the same build to leave in that burning building to shake the Immaculate hunters.

[X] Death of Purple Irises - Tearing the power from the stolen divine objects, Rena can cast it out as a cloud of fragments of power that take the form of purple irises. They can cut down a charging horde, and flowers grow where they fall.

 

[Varder]

What makes "I murdered the man I loved because he found out I was lying to him about not actually having given up practising evil magic and consorting with soul eating monsters" so much more acceptable than the other two?

Click to shrink...

There's nothing in the vote that says that Rena was in love. It merely says that he courted her and they might have married. Considering that she's of a noble house (as I understand it), the thought that it was anything but arranged marriage didn't even cross my mind.

[ ] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

Click to shrink...

 

[Aleph]

Hey, I saw it as the most evil. Chiro was longest ago, and Neiko was a subordinate and thus we might not have cared about her as much since she was never an equal, but Ferem... we might have married Ferem. If. If he hadn't tried to get in the way of our lust for power.

That's really what I picked him for, at core. Chiro says "we will kill to gain magic and knowledge", and Neiko says "we will kill to survive", but Ferem says "we will kill anyone and anything, no matter how beloved, that tries to tear us down or make us stop consolidating power".

 

[EarthScorpion]

There's nothing in the vote that says that Rena was in love. It merely says that he courted her and they might have married.

Click to shrink...

Choose one person you cherished and betrayed.

Click to shrink...

Technically it says "cherished", but that's because I had to write it to cover "you betrayed your friend" and "you betrayed your servant".

But in the case of "person who was courting you and you might have married", "cherished" means luuuuuuuuuuv.

 

[LotusPocus]

[X] Ferem Niko Koizumi, who courted you and you might have married. But he wanted you to stop consorting with fae. You promised you'd stop, but... well, when he discovered you in bed with two of them, he had to go.

A harem is clearly better than one husband.

[X] Watchful Beauteous Statue - It is a miracle of the gods that they can hear prayers and respond to them. Taking the power for herself, Rena can see and speak through stone images of herself.

See Rena is now already on her way to divinity. Worship her plebeians, as the sexy, sexy goddess that she is. Divinity has never been this desirable!

 

[Broken25]

My perspective on this Choice of Betrayal is that the other two choices make our protagonist seem like some kind of unforgivable monster. This option allows her to exist as someone who is merely an individual that contravenes acceptable standards of behavior and is willing to destroy those who oppose her.

Click to shrink...

Uhhh

What kind of quest do you think this is

Rena is in the bussiness of devouring souls to turn them into magical slaves or feed antinatural abominations. She did this to a totally harmless servant just a couple updates ago. She had done it to random peasants in the past

There is nothing reedemable here.

[X] Neiko, your faithful maid who fled with you. She was loyal to the end, even when everyone else had turned on you. But you needed a woman with the same build to leave in that burning building to shake the Immaculate hunters.
[X] Watchful Beauteous Statue - It is a miracle of the gods that they can hear prayers and respond to them. Taking the power for herself, Rena can see and speak through stone images of herself.

Death of Irises is more inmediately useful, sure, but WBS is inmensely better for Rena after she gets a new base of power. Longdistance communication is just incredible for organizational purposes.

(Now, it only allows to communicate with places with statues of Rena, ie, friendly bases, but is still really really good).

 

[ImperatorV]

[X] Neiko, your faithful maid who fled with you. She was loyal to the end, even when everyone else had turned on you. But you needed a woman with the same build to leave in that burning building to shake the Immaculate hunters.

[X] Death of Purple Irises - Tearing the power from the stolen divine objects, Rena can cast it out as a cloud of fragments of power that take the form of purple irises. They can cut down a charging horde, and flowers grow where they fall.