It's a Girl's World -- And Lilly wants Adventure

Reader mode
Feudal Aristocracy never misses a chance to live down to its reputation I see. Not that I exactly had the best impression of this guy before but this is petty, spiteful, and stupid in the worst possible way.

[x] Plan: Unite them, Bring them Together
-[X] [DoD] Tell Captain Martin what you have overheard.
-[X] [AMahs] For all the experience I've gained, I think my melee skills have only been sufficient because I have never seriously fought an armed attacker. There is much I have to learn. In fact, Mathew probably has techniques he hasn't even started teaching me yet.
-[X] [Lmt] Whatever the circumstances, I made a promise before witnesses and it would be looked down upon to renege.
-[X] [Fsr] I want an educated tutor who will teach me anything I want to know, no questions asked.
-[X] [QoNG] Write In.
--[X] You don't really understand what it is that's different about you, what kind of spirit decided to tamper with things, but from the beginning, things have been weird. [Dream Within The Forest]was nice, but when it Expanded, it just added more abilities... And then a second Ethos arrived the day after you woke from your disappearance, which occasionally chimed in with helpful information and warnings--and luck you guess? You're still figuring out how that one works. Then both of these started adding new abilities--and then you gained a Third Ethos--that's where the Pithe stuff comes from, actually. For whatever reason, it seems like whatever spirits, gods, or other beings are responsible for giving us our Ethae just keep... Missing me, and throwing me new ones all the time. It was good in that it helped me protect the valley, {The Ladder} made it pretty clear how many lives were at stake if I just stayed hidden at home with Father and the others, and it was enough to help me break the defenses of the corruption in the forest, and keep up with everything--but now he just rolls in like this, does all of this, and I get a report saying that he's going to be responsible for my death if I don't stop him somehow?--and now he's planning on killing them all? Just to maybe get me a little faster when he's going to have me killed anyway? It's... It's not right, but I also can't just put you at risk by running away first--even if he doesn't have anyone watching for me trying something like that. I need help, I need to know more, I need to be wiser, I need to be stronger, so that I can find a way out of this that doesn't lead to anyone getting killed or broken on my behalf, and Father's... Not a soldier.
---[X] TL;DR: Bring him in on the Lillyspiracy, he's stuck his neck out for us, the least we can do is reciprocate. Lilly is a gamechanger, and more importantly she's established that she's as responsible as someone can really get in her position. That being said, less demonstrations with the weirder shit--it's okay to stick to generalities, but having an unpredictable surprise up your sleeve feels like it might be important in the immediate future.
-[X] [Auw] Tell Captain Martin. Whatever he hopes to accomplish, this will change things.
[x] [AC] Give Captain Martin the transcript of everything we heard. The disgust practically speaks for itself.
[x] [AC] Take Myah under your wing, she wanted to run away with you, collect her before it's too late.
[x] [AC] You have the tree waiting for you, dedicate time to sneaking to it and communing.
 
darknessworld said:
Not a lot is happening there, so this is why most aren't talking about them (the thread is 4 pages long). Do you want the link?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The link would be good to have here.

Anywho, something something I'm just throwing ideas out, but here, have some Ethae definitely not inspired by Worm at all (like this story absolutely doesn't have Worm vibes) no siree. Note: use of 'you' is not intended to imply a specific person, just a hypothetical 'you' that would be receiving the choice to take that Ethos.

Damaged Determinator (Oath?): You have suffered much, already, but those wounds have given you an undeniable strength of will and purpose. When others are broken, you endure. When the situation is bad, you make the best of it. Overwhelmed, outnumbered, outgunned? You are meant for that fight. Strike above your weight, never without price, but a price you'll find worth what it buys.
Inspiration: So you know how Taylor keeps going up against powerful opponents and winning but breaking her everything? That, as an ethos. Turn pain into power.

Conflict Engine (Inverted?): War is all you've ever known, chaos and conflict strewn throughout your life, something you cannot escape. Fine then! If you cannot escape the field of battle, you will make yourself a weapon, temper yourself in the fire of battle, and happen to someone else, an overwhelming force like you have suffered.
Inspiration: Endbringers. 'nuff said. Especially since it might be spoilers to say more? Eh.

Efficient Administrator (I have no idea, possibly Essence?): You have always been intelligent, and that has led you to internalize something long before the others of your time: Many hands make light work. Organizing your fellows is a force multiplier, and with it you can leverage your allies to do things they never would have on their own.
Inspiration: Literally Taylor's Power
 
I believe what gave experience to the tower was us blowing up our brain with [Cleaver of Fortune], the overclocking. But Towing Edifice comes with an absolute understanding of our internal workings. from Favored Within, or maybe even partly Perfect Proprioception - since it extends into Essence, it doesn't say concordance buuut, well.. regardless.
We got an insight into the workings of {The Ladder} and {Rungs of Wisdom}, to me it looks like it looks for moments of importance in peoples lives. Then it builds up power, or currency of some sort, to call on that information. After the knowledge is bought it decodes it and gives it context, translates it into something Lilly can understand....
But thing is, if we made the [Cleaver of Forture] use the Core Heart to process information, route it into that... could we sidestep blowing up the brain? Then again, the brain and core are in a sort of quantum position, so it may as well end up the same way. Mayhaps the brain needs upgrades.

I notice that [The Towering Edifice to Haven] completes any rune 90% of the time. It's super good at extrapolating runes to completion. After pops wakes up, imagine how fast we would learn if we went over all the runes he created. We'd learn faster than anyone in the world. And his [Iteration to Perfection] could possibly create lots of prototypes in a short time, we have an Ethos that if I'm reading this stuff right develops them to their logical conclusion.

Riemannian Geometer is an ability that can be used towards obscuring ourselves. Making us invisible in ways. Think it involves understanding the space and paths essence naturally flows and forcing our own essence to flow through those same paths, where they would naturally stay within our body. Like dispersing our essence, or making our essence flow out of us, but sending it only on pathways that lead back to us.
Tho... since it's a power akin to getting a closer understanding of the physics of Essence, as a step towards perceiving spacetime. Think it may allow us to do some spooky things, especially if there is potential to use pith powers trough essence, or within essence packets. Or something crazy like that.
 
Last edited:
Edifier said:
I notice that [The Towering Edifice to Haven] completes any rune 90% of the time. It's super good at extrapolating runes to completion. After pops wakes up, imagine how fast we would learn if we went over all the runes he created. We'd learn faster than anyone in the world. And his [Rapid Iterator] could possibly create lots of prototypes in a short time, we have an Ethos that if I'm reading this stuff right develops them to their logical conclusion.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't see where you are getting this info at all. I see nothing connecting the tower and runes at all. Can you show me where you found this?
 
GlassMask said:
I don't see where you are getting this info at all. I see nothing connecting the tower and runes at all. Can you show me where you found this?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
[Tremendous Mechanist] from character sheet. It's highlighted with the yellow that belongs to [The Towering Edifice to Haven]. It's an extension, or benefit from it.
-> Knowledge of body and basic mechanical systems
- Implicit understanding of weak points in a physical system similiar to anything encountered before.
- Intrinsic familiarity with anatomy renders it nigh impossible to make mistakes in surgical attempts.

-> Finesse in Runic/Glyph carving skills to sub-visible precision. The absolute maximum theoretical efficiency and stability a particular design can reach is always fully realized.
- Saturation reduced by an order of magnitude for all Runes.
- Glyph inefficiency is only quadruple Runes, rather than up to a hundred.
- Can precisely copy any Rune of which Lilly possess the correct Sources and capacity to manipulate.

-> So long as you have passing familiarity with what you're looking at, you can likely instinctively extrapolate 90% of how it functions on sight.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The last line, I thought it could... complete a rune... I was wrong. It can just give her the knowledge if it will work or if it works give what effect it produces. But still, the combo with pops will be tremendous. Lilly would do amazing as a tester of runes and point out flaws.
 
Last edited:
I'm slightly confused about the normal version of Towering Edifice to Heaven. So, it seems like the idea is this:
A nation is about to be killed off.
Suddenly, a dungeon plonks into the middle of it.
The nation sends warriors into the dungeon, they take out the sweet loot and xp, and go prevent themselves from being killed off.
The problem here is that if a nation is about to be destroyed, then they aren't likely to devote forces to dungeon crawling, unless the dungeon is an immediate threat, in which case they're likely doomed.

Actually, I think I've thought of an answer. If humans are capable to seeing the future, higher spirits can probably do it, and better. So I guess the dungeon would be plonked down before the possible genocide, not during.
 
Edifier said:
[Tremendous Mechanist] from character sheet.

The last line, I thought it could... complete a rune... I was wrong. It can just give her the knowledge if it will work or if it works give what effect it produces. But still, the combo with pops will be tremendous. Lilly would do amazing as a tester of runes and point out flaws.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Okay so not the tower, but a different section. And yeah we should probably pick up that runic ethos later.
 
The cells in the char sheet between S117 and V121 contain some kind of calculation that has probably to do with the [Tower] and its XP and gravitas but no idea what exactly.
 
Slyvena said:
[ ] [EvieLVL] A fun thing demons sometimes do…
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Super happy this won, It came incredibly handy in this encounter as well. It's {Subversion}, a fun thing indeed.

Half Moon said:
I'm slightly confused about the normal version of Towering Edifice to Heaven. So, it seems like the idea is this:
A nation is about to be killed off.
Suddenly, a dungeon plonks into the middle of it.
The nation sends warriors into the dungeon, they take out the sweet loot and xp, and go prevent themselves from being killed off.
The problem here is that if a nation is about to be destroyed, then they aren't likely to devote forces to dungeon crawling, unless the dungeon is an immediate threat, in which case they're likely doomed.

Actually, I think I've thought of an answer. If humans are capable to seeing the future, higher spirits can probably do it, and better. So I guess the dungeon would be plonked down before the possible genocide, not during.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The dungeon is also designed to be easy to beat. As all the monsters or opposition Edifice provides is designed to lose.
Slyvena said:
[Towering Edifice to Heaven | 7958-A Series, Regional Stressor Event] (Foundational): (Deific)
Recommend use only to rebalance conflict trending too far toward an unscheduled genocide resolution; re-establish status quo through new equalising variables. Pseudo-matter imposition constraints relaxed, though care should be taken not to generate synergy cascades and unintentionally disrupt an otherwise stabilized situation. Strength of initial ranging entities should be severely constrained so as to not eliminate existing inhabitants; the goal is redistribution not eradication. Toleration of Domestication has not been granted for this iteration, upscale investment arbitrarily to resist any long term group suppression. :::GEOLOGICAL INTEGRATION ONLY:::
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah. And since it gives Pseudo-matter, like vibranium, adamantium, and mithril. Which the people can use themselves, or the dungeon monsters drop as artifacts. Like. It just needs a farmer to go inside, kill a rat, come out with a new pitchfork or valuable material.
Since it's designed to be a non-threat to the locals. An easy source of power.

Slyvena said:
(I would need to work on some concepts from the other integration vectors later, right now I didn't want to push too far and accidently decohere her.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If what we did, then us pushing [Cleaver of Fortune] to forcibly integrate into our soul. Think decoherence is the consequence of pushing too much. Since the Optimal-Lilly was weary of pushing too far as well, but with {Oken Core} and {Essence Metabolism}.

Slyvena said:
You intuitively know that if it were not for the innate essence that now flows onto any clothing you wear, the {Core Heart} would dissolve anything it touched.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I have a question on this. Gathering materials to enhance ourselves?
Slyvena said:
The girl was in tremendous danger, there were so many unguarded vectors of attack which could take her life that she lacked any tools to counter. Specific solutions would follow later, for now a generalized barrier to at least make such efforts more difficult would have to suffice; a meta-frame to amplify her influence and importance on reality and dimmish all else. I wove it and thus it was so; its name, 'Primordial Chassis'.

Ev'aclliál's craftsmanship was ingenious and intricate, the Foundational Ethos slowly uncompressing itself from a knotted singularity within our vessel. This was recent work, inspired by nothing less than the Maw̵͚̋'s own designs to make it possible. Normally there should be all kinds of constraints on the quantity and quality of structures the [Tower] could produce. But thanks to her machinations, eventually the only hard limits would be available resources.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The absorbing may not just connect to [The Towering Edifice to Heaven], but also improve and upgrade the tower's first artifact, the 'Primordial Chassis'. So feed stuff into the core. Yes?

Something that may help us and everyone around us is to study the people around us. Link ourselves via essence to heal and improve the people, the soldiers, our family. Top them up, possibly optimize. Mayhaps even learn to identify and label powers. A general improvement to all under Lilly's banner.
 
Last edited:
...you know what's getting me about last update? How did we get point 6 of a Gravitas? Does it go smaller? Why only now are we getting fractional Gravitas?
 
Last edited:
Alectai said:
The GM has literally told us that "Anything that requires more than your {Sample Space Limit} to determine success or failure is beyond the scope"

So "Drawing a Rune with [Quickwit Stennvoker?], doable--and in fact you can abuse this to employ Runes that would normally be way too complex or failure-prone to use. Actually inventing a Rune with it? No."

The limitation of {Sample Space} is "Is this action fully resolved with the results completely apparent within the time limit". You can't game that by coming up with plans!

Because {Sample Space} can't fucking tell if the plan is going to have desirable long term effects--merely that the first move is done to perfection.

Long term forecasting is the purview of {The Ladder}, {Sample Space} is for achieving a transient maximum. If you want Long Term Plan Improvements? We need to work on {The Ladder}.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I feel you have misunderstood. My post acknowledges that "Lilly won't know the plans' final results". The method of optimization is based on the Lillies' best judgment (and whatever extra computation may be allowed in said judgment) rather than strict future-sight.

In other words, sample space is being used as a plan-optimizer, rather than as a results-optimizer.

An analogy would be increasing the population of this thread to 1 billion creative individuals, who are also a hive-mind so as not to get overwhelmed by the sheer post content. Even though the 1 billion would not know beforehand (just as we don't!) how well their plan would work, to say that their plan would not be better than ours would be... a serious stretch.

The particular example of runes is problematic, because it seems to need experimental results to be optimized--it is perhaps one of few examples where having a billion may not help. Even then, however, if a single sample-Lilly has an insight "wow, if you look at it this way., it's so obvious; that has to be it!" then all the Lillies would as well; sample-space still works as an idea-generator.
 
Last edited:
Okay, I see what you're getting at. "We can spend a functionally infinite time planning because we can come up with a big plan."

The problem is that said plan is based entirely off of the data we knew at that very moment, {Sample Space} cannot be used to forecast, it simply means that each individual step is the best it could be at the moment you make it.

Good plans aren't based on gut feelings, they're based on having good data. An infinite number of Lillys making an infinite number of plans are still fundamentally limited by the data they enter by, so the results will be marginal compared to using {Sample Space} as it should be used, since {Sample Space} can't determine which of these plans are 'Fundamentally Better'.

Yes, you can use {Sample Space} to come up with a quick plan, but {Sample Space} doesn't have any way of determining which one is objectively the best, so one is effectively picked at random. It will lack any careless mistakes that might have been brought on by Lilly being tired, or missing something that she otherwise knew or was aware of, but it won't be able to draw forth the Objectively Best Plan from nothing.

It's spending a hundred dollars to get an extra 10, 15% efficiency when you could spend a hundred dollars to complete a critical move perfectly. It's a terrible trade.
 
When Lilly has enough time to plan, it's a terrible trade. When overwhelming baddies are 30 seconds from finding her, a great insight of how to avoid them could be worth more than a perfect move in combat.

For difficult problems, insights may also not be forthcoming even with hours or days of consideration; otherwise, advances in the sciences would be easy. In this setting, a second of sample space may be worth more than an indefinite period of deliberation.
 
noncannon said:
When Lilly has enough time to plan, it's a terrible trade. When overwhelming baddies are 30 seconds from finding her, a great insight of how to avoid them could be worth more than a perfect move in combat.

For difficult problems, insights may also not be forthcoming even with hours or days of consideration; otherwise, advances in the sciences would be easy. In this setting, a second of sample space may be worth more than an indefinite period of deliberation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Except--as has already been made clear, {The Ladder} is far better at that kind of projection? Like we just saw?

The ideal is that we use them in tandem, not that we try to shove everything into {Sample Space}'s baliwick.
 
Maybe if we learn to ask questions of the Ladder. Right now, it's providing its insights strictly on its own schedule and some of those insights are arguably trolling us, like the number of people we would save.

The Captain Martin Ladder insight was something that "you should never do... again".

I'm also skeptical that the Ladder would be so kind as to say "here's an insight for your next [difficult project] research step" (rather than "here's the next source of conflict, go fight!"), though I''ll be happy to be proven wrong there.
 
Last edited:
Lilly's within {Sample Space} don't communicate with one another.
You would end up with a million seperate Lillys having an idea for doing something. And the mechanism deciding on the choices would pick the Lilly with the best insight.
It's certainly something, but I think the {sample space} would stutter out because there is no clear consequence for the action.

I hypothesize that {sample space} works by Lilly having point A and wanting to get to point C - killing people, saving a person, doing a fantastic job of essence manipulation beyond comprehension.
Sample Space works by splitting B into millions of separate versions, like AI competing to solve the problem. I believe it needs a clear end goal. No clairvoyance possible within this mechanism. Clairvoyance is Ladders ballpark, and it has worked in tandem with stutter ping. Remember when it dictated Lilly how and when to use {Sample Space} when fighting the dungeon.
And long as the goal is short term, with a clear enough result, it can start running simulations.
Now there are millions of versions of B, it can compare each of those to what Lilly desires of C. It will pick one that best matches up with C.

After which [Cleaver of Fortune] puppets Lilly's body. And vola!

Each of the skills in the Ethos are specialized tools. What you think of using {Sample Space} for, {The Ladder} is already designed for that.

But like, Lilly could possibly do impossible things when healing dad with {Sample Space}. Or upgrading dad, because all he needs now is cosmetic surgery to make him look normal, remember he is already healed. Or if we want to upgrade a person, trying to figure something out we can push till we come at a block and then use {Sample Space} to cheat our way past a problem.

If we have a goal to do something concrete. Lilly is able to use {Sample Space} to have herself perform that thing she didn't know how to do. But there is the memory retention problem from the power puppeteering Lilly through the action, it'd still be a clue to performing and finding the limits of our powers.
 
Last edited:
noncannon said:
Maybe if we learn to ask questions of the Ladder. Right now, it's providing its insights strictly on its own schedule and some of those insights are arguably trolling us, like the number of people we would save.

The Captain Martin Ladder insight was something that "you should never do... again".

I'm also skeptical that the Ladder would be so kind as to say "here's an insight for your next [difficult project] research step" (rather than "here's the next source of conflict, go fight!"), though I''ll be happy to be proven wrong there.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

We can ask it questions on purpose now, the reason we overstressed [Cleaver of Fortune] was because we overclocked it to get a much more comprehensive report than we had the Potential to cash in for because of the crisis. Not because we asked it a direct question.

It won't tell us necessarily exactly what we need to know, but it will tell us where to look, and then subsequently use {Sample Space} as needed to pave over speedbumps.
 
Last edited:
Alectai said:
We can ask it questions on purpose now, the reason we overstressed [Cleaver of Fortune] was because we overclocked it to get a much more comprehensive report than we had the Potential to cash in for because of the crisis. Not because we asked it a direct question.

It won't tell us necessarily exactly what we need to know, but it will tell us where to look, and then subsequently use {Sample Space} as needed to pave over speedbumps.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
{The Ladder} got 6 tier ups from that.
{Rungs of Wisdom} got 7 tier ups from that.

Our Soul is our level cap. The more our powers take part of our soul the less potential there is for other powers to grow - not a worry for the foreseeable future. And we have somehow made it so that the powers me make part of ourselves get assimilated into Lilly, rather than being borrowed. It's quite awesome.
But thing is, parts of Flow, parts of Oath, parts of Mana, and... if there are other things. They are still invisible to Lilly's senses. We need those Ethos to improve self-awareness.

Edit:
There is something to note about {Rungs of Wisdom}.
It is set on automatic.
It gives advice less frequently If you add search conditions for it like: Exclude this, must include this, look for this or this or this, look for this and this and this.
Our Rungs of Wisdom is un-configured.
Yet even tho it becomes less frequent in advice, I believe it could be made better by adding a few parameters for the search engine to work by. Narrow down the wisdom it gives us closer to what we want out of it and what would be usefuller.
This would still be running on automatic, if a modified automatic.

Taking it off automatic means we have to ask it stuff. Probably like Lilly did right now, which puts it on cooldown.

Note: I myself have no idea to what end we would narrow down {Rungs of Wisdom} search parameters. :V Concordance is like google, where do we want to aim, what do we want to achieve? What can be excluded, what must be included. And then It'll become an ads delivering AI targeted to our preferences.
 
Last edited:
Taking another look at the character sheet, {Rungs of Wisdom} does seem to imply question asking... in a very broad sense. It's not yet clear if we can, for example, switch from Autonomous mode to "find a hiding spot" for 30 seconds, then back again--or, for that matter, how much it reduces the question rate. Without, at minimum, the former knowledge, it's difficult to gauge.

When left on autonomous settings, frequency of advice is greatly increased. Elements and degrees of specificity can be applied for an increasingly severe malus on advice frequency.
Current Setting: Autonomous
(Becomes more active in life/death situations. Optomised for a 1-week timeframe.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Technically, asking for A OR B OR C is less specific than asking for A alone (since everything that matches the latter also matches the former), so we could change Rungs of Wisdom from autonomous mode to "Ensure family's survival OR Recruit Martin OR Counter Waters OR Help Myah".

The big problem is that we don't know how much the insight rate is reduced, and can't know without extensive testing--which we don't have time for, with Waters on the verge of attacking. So, we're left with little choice but to leave it in autonomous mode.

Edifer's roughly convinced me that {Rungs} can be re-targeted for a single battle (the forest incursion, in particular, where we presumably--and unintentionally--set it to prevent deaths). It's less clear, however, whether we can do so for a specific task, then back into autonomous mode. That would be a real form of question-asking, and much needed for, say, the "30 seconds until we're found" event.

(See also Edifer's edits above)
 
Last edited:
From what I'm seeing, if you ask it questions yourself you put a hefty cooldown on {Rungs of Wisdom} meaning it'll be offline recovering, no advice for the period. Negating the benefits of the autonomous mode for the period.
Yet it came in handy for getting out of Lord Waters grasp in this chapter.

If you set the search conditions of {Rungs of Wisdom} for, "help me overcome Lord Waters conflict," then it will ignore other input and only use the limited energy to find and bring advice that aids you prepare for overcoming the coming battles and traps.
 
Alectai said:
Gravitas isn't exclusive to whole numbers and presumably Tower is generating trace amounts of its own?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
If that's the case, and I suppose it must to some extent, why do we only see whole Gravitas in our other powers? What's eating the deciGravitas that should be a thing otherwise?

Edifier said:
From what I'm seeing, if you ask it questions yourself you put a hefty cooldown on {Rungs of Wisdom} meaning it'll be offline recovering, no advice for the period. Negating the benefits of the autonomous mode for the period.
Yet it came in handy for getting out of Lord Waters grasp in this chapter.

If you set the search conditions of {Rungs of Wisdom} for, "help me overcome Lord Waters conflict," then it will ignore other input and only use the limited energy to find and bring advice that aids you prepare for overcoming the coming battles and traps.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah that seems an accurate summation.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Back
Top