Alternatively, because 6 Power is hard to meet but Cups and Pentacles can pass the required criteria already:
[X] Be cunning and forceful. Engineer an escape, or hold your own against the witch long enough to get away.
-[X] Three, Eight, Queen of Cups, XIX The Sun and 0 The Fool
Anyways, not familiar enough with the Tarot to know which card to pick, but IIRC we should avoid spending Aces unless we have to, and we'd have to do so (or spend Trumps) if we used Swords.
Devil's (ha) advocate: if the thread is adamant that Ash never pick up a Swordsly ambition (which seems like the zeigeist), is spending an Ace worse or is spending a wildcard Trump?
I still want Ash to be able to go back if they want to, and losing Aces does not seem conducive to that lmao
(And losing the capability to hold Ambition is definitely the kind of thing that has narrative impact on whatever Ending we get)
If you have at least two Triumphant Initiations, search the Unseen for any one of the following cards -- VI The Lovers, X The Wheel of Fortune, XX Judgement -- and shuffle it into the Ascent Deck.
Here's this bit from last time, XI JUSTICE. Looks like these three cards are special. They might interact with Triumphant Initiations in some special manner? Or just only be available to those who have two or more. It could be that drawing one of these three cards leads to the end our of journey, in which case, we might want to be really careful about which we pick.
Here's this bit from last time, XI JUSTICE. Looks like these three cards are special. They might interact with Triumphant Initiations in some special manner? Or just only be available to those who have two or more. It could be that drawing one of these three cards leads to the end our of journey, in which case, we might want to be really careful about which we pick.
So if a card were to trigger a victory, it would not be something you trip into. You get to choose. You can be forced to fall off the Ascent, but you cannot be forced to be content with what you have found.
Trumps are too valuable to use except in dire circumstances, and we have enough cups resources that we can afford to lose.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
However, I don't trust our chances of not faceplanting into a third Peril before we draw the card we take now; and our chances of passing a fourth Peril without losing an Ace is probably 0?
However, I don't trust our chances of not faceplanting into a third Peril before we draw the card we take now; and our chances of passing a fourth Peril without losing an Ace is probably 0?
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X][GLORY] XX Judgement
This is awesome. And I love how Ash's quest has a resolution on-screen instead of merely being a sort of fluff. I hope Aiglan's beloved has not been irreversibly broken by the peril...
Given how the "reach out to others" thing includes reaching out to the witch, I'm wondering if Brieta might have been twisted into becoming the witch, somehow?
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
She laughs, like the purest sound of bells. "And who ought they belong to? Themselves? Hardly. They are not qualified; left to their own devices, they throw themselves at the Ascent and destroy themselves in droves. So I catch up those I can, and give them a comfortable and pleasant life here -- and I know that you have seen that this place contains many comforts, and much pleasure -- for as long as they endure."
Look, calling your lotus eater machine "the Sweetsickness Hall" kind of gives the game away. Rationalizing your evil action or using blatantly villainous names, pick one.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
While our dedication to Willpower conservation last card left us slightly too short on Swords Power to comfortably punch this monster in the face, I'm not at all put out by that. Using Connections to save Brieta (and however many others are trapped here) feels very right
...speaking of Willpower conservation, am I reading this correctly? No Willpower expenditure no matter which choice we pick? I guess this witch isn't so bad after all!
Entirely serious thoughts on the Glory vote: The Lovers: in the Rider–Waite tarot deck, this card contains the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Clearly this means that this is the choice to go for if we want to know things, and Wands look a bit like tree trunks anyway, so this is a good choice for someone with a Wands ambition. The Wheel of Fortune: in the Rider–Waite tarot deck, this card has a sphinx holding a sword on top of the wheel. Sphinx kill people who don't know things, and swords are bad, so this is a bad choice! Judgement: in the Rider–Waite tarot deck, this card contains a trumpet, which is neither a Wand nor a Sword. This is clearly the wildcard choice, high-risk and high-reward.
Does the other Major Arcana cards shown so far roughly match up to your interpretation of the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck? In the meantime:
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X][GLORY] VI The Lovers
It's a bit of a mixed bag. There's a sense in which all the things we saw from the Major Arcana follow the tarot fairly closely - certainly a lot more than the Minor Arcana - but I'm not at all confident in my ability to predict what other Major Arcana cards will do, which is why I was pretty tongue-in-check in my assessment of the three cards; I'm honestly pretty much just randomly guessing here.
The Empress is probably the one that most closely follows both the meaning of the tarot and the actual picture on the card. The Empress is a woman sitting in a forest, and is said to represent fertility and motherhood and nurturing and so on, and that's pretty much what we got. The Sun is also decently close to the meaning of the card, because it's associated with a bunch of positive things like success and happiness and the picture contains a literal child so yeah I guess that works. Justice is a bit a of a stretch, you can sort of claim that Rowan was a consequence of our actions and that he represents justice or our actions catching up to us, but eh. The Devil represents obsession and addiction, and the picture has two chained demons, that fits pretty well? Chains of obsession or whatever? The Fool, if you want to count that, is said by some to represent beginnings, in a way that's pretty appropriate for the card we had from the start and that represents our potential.
The thing is, those cards have a whole bunch of different possible meanings, and some of them clearly don't fit what we got. Some of the Rider-Waites interpretations of Justice are connected to the actual literal law, which obviously had nothing to do with what we saw. The Empress is motherhood and stuff, but also
Fruitfulness, action, initiative, length of days; the unknown, clandestine; also difficulty, doubt, ignorance. Reversed: Light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoicings; according to another reading, vacillation.
which, yeah, we got none of that. And so on. So you can look at the meanings of The Lovers and Judgement and The Wheel of Fortune and try to guess what it could end up being, and I think it's a lot more likely that one of your guesses will be right than with the Minor Arcana, but that'll still be just one of several guesses. So I decided to just look at the pretty pictures and go with my gut.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
Delightful update, and I continue to be gobsmacked at our luck. Was The Devil always going to be where we found Brietta? Because if so, finding it just in time for it to push us to the next stage of our Ascent is pretty much a perfect draw.
Honestly there was never gonna be a world in which we'd want to address this with anything but Cups anyway. Yeah, theoretically we could try to save them for another trial, but there's no guarantee they'd even be eligible to use there.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
Any thoughts on the Glory Cards? Sounds like a Supernal Finale to me - we won't last much longer before we start losing Aces, so choosing wisely seems important here.
Hm hm. This part's trickier. I'm inclined to agree with mathymancer that the symbolism involved is variable enough to make reliable predictions...hm, challenging at best. Failing which I'm inclined to vote by personal aesthetics - I enjoy adding The Lovers to our deck as a reward for resolving Aiglan & Brietta's sidequest.
Hm hm. This part's trickier. I'm inclined to agree with mathymancer that the symbolism involved is variable enough to make reliable predictions...hm, challenging at best. Failing which I'm inclined to vote by personal aesthetics - I enjoy adding The Lovers to our deck as a reward for resolving Aiglan & Brietta's sidequest.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X][GLORY] VI The Lovers
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X][GLORY] VI The Lovers
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X][GLORY] VI The Lovers
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[X][GLORY] VI The Lovers
I'm surprised that our woe has no mechanical effect. Especially given the narrative of relying on connections here.
I never said that the Woe would have mechanical impact, but I guess I never said it wouldn't, even though it's not mentioned in the Mechanics threadmark. But to be clear: the only mechanical decision that was made in character creation was the Aspiration. The Woe, in particular, was meant to be something that your character might meaningfully try to address over the course of the quest, and you all have definitely been doing that.
EDIT:
Was The Devil always going to be where we found Brietta? Because if so, finding it just in time for it to push us to the next stage of our Ascent is pretty much a perfect draw.
Yes, back when I drew the Knight of Cups I spent some time thinking about what had actually happened to his beloved and whether this was going to be a mystery Ash might solve, and I decided that this card would be a fitting peril to be tied to it. In particular: in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, The Lovers and The Devil have linked art, where the two are united in love on one card and bound in chains in the other, so given that I already knew the deal of the Witch of Sweetsickness Hall, it seemed like the obvious thing.
And yeah, the cards have been really nice to you in some ways (though not in others -- variance, yo).
Anyway, voting closed, time to roll some dice.
Scheduled vote count started by picklepikkl on May 6, 2024 at 9:12 PM, finished with 25 posts and 12 votes.
[X] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[X] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[*] Reach out to others -- your fellow prisoners, your memories of friends and companions, even the witch herself -- and let them save you.
-[*] Five, Six, Page, Knight of Cups and 1 Supernal Connection
[*][GLORY] VI The Lovers
"I'm curious, Aspirant," the witch says to you. "Why did you come here? I know you noticed my wards. Why did you not simply go around?"
"How did you-" you start, and then catch yourself, realizing the obvious. "The first layer I saw isn't the first layer."
"Oh, a bright one!" she says. "I do love the bright ones. My scrying network goes out farther, of course, and lets me have a good look at anyone trying to examine my home. So I repeat: why come here? Pure curiosity? It'll be the death of you, you know."
You ignore that and try to keep your face impassive while you work out the implications of what she's said. You hadn't known that, but it made sense, and the plan had accounted for something like it, so best to just stick to the plan for now. You pull out the pendant, now at its full dark brightness. "There's someone here I've been looking for, and I'm not leaving without her."
She actually claps her hands. "Not just a bright one, but a hero! It's been so long since a hero has found their way to me. You might be my new favorite."
You are suddenly sick of her banter, despite the fact that it's theoretically to your advantage. Your stomach churns as you think about what you've seen. "Why do you do it?" you ask quietly, but with real anger burning underneath your words.
"Well, my dear hero, why does anyone keep pets? For the companionship, and the joy of it, and the entertainment value. And it's for their own good, too: I take them in out of the cold and give them better lives." The witch pauses and eyes you appraisingly. When she speaks again, her playful tone is... not gone, but lessened. "The Ascent does not, actually, primarily attract driven and capable occultists. The driven and the capable tend to find enough to occupy themselves in the world of shadows, and the ones who are driven and capable and dissatisfied are rarer than you might think. No; the Ascent is mostly made up of sad sacks, people who failed out there and fled up here in the hopes of making something of their pathetic existence."
(You, again, try to keep your reaction controlled. You find it harder this time.)
She keeps talking. "Perhaps the lady you came in search of doesn't truly belong here -- after all, she clearly was doing something right to gain such loyalty! -- but if so, she's an exception. My home does not lie along the hard road that takes you to the top; no, to get here you have to step off of it and seek out an easier path. The guests of Sweetsickness Hall are the Aspirants who lack commitment. And I give them what they are really looking for. Comfort. Security. Enjoyment. They won't find it on the mountaintop, but they'll find it here. You'll find it here. Here is where you can lay everything aside and just rest."
"Until you drain the life out of people and they die."
She smiles sweetly at you. "Which makes me different from life in general... how?" She sighs. "I'm going to enjoy our talks, I can tell. Come now, let's pick you out a room." She gestures, and an invisible force nearly yanks you off your feet after her -- you stumble, but stay standing. A flicker of annoyance flashes across her face. "All right, fine, get the purposeless defiance out of your system. I suppose you are a hero, after all, and I recall what they're like."
You lift your head to look at her. "You might think you're untouchable, just because I'm inside your home, and it's full of bound servitor spirits, and you've locked down my magic so I can't call anyone or strike back at you," okay now that you put it like that you're remembering that this is a fucking terrifying situation, but you're committed so you keep talking, "but there's a key oversight in your wards."
She lifts her eyebrows mockingly. "Oh?"
You take a deep breath. "Yes. You block messages from getting out, but you don't block them from getting in. Which is understandable on your part because, well, there's no point, right? Not like those of us in here can do anything about it. Unless, of course, someone had prearranged for allies on the outside to give aid, and those allies needed time to work undisturbed, and so were sending a signal to that someone so they knew exactly how long they needed to stall the mistress of the house for."
Her expression changes while you speak, and as the last words leave your mouth, she is already wheeling, no doubt ready to return to her sanctum or wherever she keeps her scrying setup. But it's too late; the pulse you've been feeling drumming against your soul reaches a crescendo and then abruptly stops, and you dive for cover.
"BREAK."
There is not a good word to use to describe what happens to the wall of Sweetsickness Hall. "Disintegrated" seems like the pieces constituting the wall just vanished, which they most assuredly did not. "Imploded" is too clinical and precise-sounding. "Crumbled" is too gentle, like something made out of sand rather than stone, and "shattered" is too trivial, like a dropped teacup.
Say this, rather: the wall was destroyed. Someone destroyed it. Where once there was a wall, there then was only destruction.
It's clunky. But it's the best you've got.
You do your best to clear your head after the destruction of the wall. Its collapse was incredibly loud, but the command that precipitated it was somehow louder. You're dazed and reeling, and you're not sure how much time passes before your vision focuses. You can see the field outside of Sweetsickness Hall, now; the witch is there, engaged in some sort of magical battle with...
You squint. There are about a dozen figures, robed and hooded in black and arranged in a rough semicircle. In front of them is another figure, in a similar but more ornate robe, though you can't make out the details from here. Regardless, it's a heavyweight fight: a lot of power is being thrown around out there, and you think you know who is responsible for the wall coming down.
Just then, you feel a hand on your shoulder. "Ash!" You turn, and that's Aiglan standing over you with a worried expression. Behind him is a young woman you don't recognize, armed and armored, looking around warily. "Theopsis and his cabal will hold her attention, but we need to get in and out before she figures out what's going on. Which way do we go?"
Right. Yes. Your scouting. You focus yourself, pulling magic in to clear your mind and block out the pain and disorientation, then get to your feet. "This way," you say, gesturing toward the "residential" wing. The young woman follows your gesture and comes up beside you, holding a leaf-bladed spear. The three of you move quickly, with her dealing efficiently with any guardians who get in your way -- animate armor, strange phantasms, even two Sicarii once. Sweetsickness Hall was buzzing as the witch called her servitors out to deal with the attack.
Finally, you're in the long hallway you'd found before. "The doors are sealed," you report. "I couldn't open them before."
"Not to worry," Aiglan says. "Dione, would you?" The woman nods, resting her spear against the wall, and draws from a sheath of glass a familiar-looking bronze sword. She focuses for a moment, then swings it once, seemingly cutting nothing but air, but her clothes flutter as though blown by a strong gust, and your extra senses can perceive the sudden severing of all the locking-magics. A moment later you can feel rather than hear the witch's scream of rage; she noticed that. You sense the battle outside intensify, as she now fights to withdraw and your allies fight to keep her in one place.
"We're on the clock," you say worriedly. The people you'd seen through the windows were not all in good enough condition to marshal themselves in a timely fashion. "I don't think we have time to go through them all. Do we just look for her, or-"
"No," Aiglan says, cutting you off. "We're not leaving anyone behind who wants to leave." You glance at him. The gentle, unassuming man you met before is gone. No, not gone: transfigured, as water is transfigured to ice. "I'll get them." He closes his eyes, takes a breath, clutches his part of the pendant, and begins to sing.
It is not a song of escape. It is not a song of inspiration. It is not a song of defiance. It is, in fact, a song of heartbreak. A song of joy, and of loss, and of the richness that comes from loving something enough that its absence hurts. Of aspiration and of failure and of hoping regardless. Aiglan sings a song of pain.
And they come. Not all of the witch's prisoners -- some are too far gone, you can tell, and even some of the ones who aren't refuse to answer Aiglan's song, preferring to stay where they are. But many of them look up, and get to their feet, and come through the door, and come to join the three of you.
As the song ends, you can feel a horde of servitors gathering to storm your position, the witch not far behind them. Dione hefts her sword again. "I can call the wind again, but I need a barrier so we don't lose anyone in transit."
"I think I can manage that," you say. You focus, the way you did in Neria's circle, and stretch yourself around the mass of people, and bid the air be as stone. It's incredibly difficult, and it commands all of your attention, but once you feel the barrier form Dione does something with the sword and the wind billows all around you all, lifting two dozen souls off of their feet and then speeding you all to safety, and you're not so focused on what you're doing that you don't notice the witch's enraged howl and smile.
When you touch down again, on a grassy hillside out of sight of Sweetsickness Hall, you release the barrier and fall on your butt without a shred of dignity. While you catch your breath and collect yourself, you look around. The former prisoners are looking around, or at themselves, or at each other. You look away; you don't want to rubberneck. But you cannot help but watch as Aiglan approaches one of them in particular.
You saw her picture before, in the locket, and she looks basically the same, which is to say: normal. Not an ethereal beauty, not the stuff of song and story, not the heroine of an epic romance which would be remembered for the ages. But then she looks up at Aiglan, and you have an angle to see her expression, and OK, you get it now. You look away from them too, doing your best to give them their privacy, which means you are watching as the cabal of shrouded figures appears from thin air. Some of their robes seem a little worse for wear -- up close, you can see that they have patterned hems in gilt thread, and their apparent leader's patterns are more elaborate designs -- but they don't seem injured. In fact, they mostly immediately start speaking excitedly to one another, before the leader (who must be the Theopsis that Aiglan mentioned) makes a gesture and they quiet down, lowering their voices and going through what seems like a rehearsed post-battle status check. Dione walks over and greets them; it looks like Aiglan's other allies know each other.
"Ash," you hear Aiglan's voice say. You turn back, and he and Brieta are looking at you, their hands clasped tightly. "Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I don't know what to say. You risked everything for us. I don't know how I can possibly repay you."
"I do," you say, and you do your best to mimic the arch tones of Theopsis over to the side. "Are you prepared to settle the debt that lies between us?"
"Yes," he says, and Brieta nods firmly.
"Give me your email address."
HERE ENDS
YOUR FIFTH NIGHT
Rolls for Aiglan's party guests are here. I'm not going to explain how they worked at this moment, because I am curious to see if people can figure it out.
Two perils down! Maybe tomorrow night will have chill vibes.
This should go without saying, but: please do not take the serial metaphysical predator as a source of unbiased objective truth.
