Well, I'm all caught up. On the one hand, I'm happy that I'll get to participate in voting, on the other I'm sad I won't be able to binge this anymore. Although to be fair, the pace at which I was reading wasn't really sustainable for me long term. Speaking of which I'm debating how soon to start the sister quest. I don't want to burn out.
Anyway about the current vote; the leading plan looks fine to me, although I do want to spar with Hesiodio at some point, to try and help him reach the next level.
I was going to suggest socializing with some of our commoner friends but looking at the Important Characters Sheet, we uh, don't seem to have any besides Hesiodio. Sigubert and Seoihilda, are the only other two we really know and they're both listed as acquaintances. Given that it's the last year it's probably too late to try and make new bonds. Sigubert seems more interested in training although given how strong we are now, he might be more open to becoming friends. Seoihilda didn't really stand out to me but she's also a possibility. I also vaguely remember going on missions with some other girls, were any of them commoners?
All that said:
[X] Take a look, It's in a book (unless it's classified)
You spent the after school hours on Thursday reading more about that old commander.
Some reference first, in regard to Terra Knight ranks. Commander is a vague term but it normally refers to the high lords, Terra Knights who are incredibly powerful and who gain a lot of political power too.
The technical term for the rank of the Commander that dealt with the abyssal was "Knight General" who is in charge of Terra Knight operations throughout most of the regions far away from the Empire's heartland.
When you get not-exiled, you'll likely be acting under the current knight General's directions. That was Gernot, you'd seen him during the Abyssal uprising as it happened. He'd been with the force that had come out when they'd gone to attack the palace itself.
Gernot had taken the position when the old Knight General had gone into retirement which you'd read about in that other record.
Once he'd retired, he'd gone to live somewhere under Africa, though the book you were reading didn't specify exactly where. Apparently it was one of his favourite places while he had been an active knight and in case of emergencies he could still fight.
Africa apparently had a problem with not enough Hollows being defeated so those kinds of problems were more likely then they'd otherwise be.
You also looked into exactly how his innate ability functioned. How did his divinity let him remove something so thoroughly that it stayed dead?
Well, you'd likened it to the Quincy before and that wasn't far off. That old commander had a stranger way of fighting. No one precisely knows how or why, but his innate ability acted like a Quincy's powers. Gathering up and shaping Reishi to produce a variety of effects. He learned how to use it to form a second spear and he fought in a dual-weapon style because of it.
And due to the fact that his second spear acted "Similarly enough" to a Quincy weapon, it could destroy souls it killed. Though he'd only use it like that in the last extremes, normally finishing hollows off with his true spear to allow them to pass on through the cycle properly.
Something sad you realised when you got to the end of that book was that the old Commander had died recently. Within the last few years at least. So you wouldn't get to speak to him in person about any of this.
On Friday, you were still thinking about your not-exile and you looked into human currencies. They sure had a lot of different currencies. That said the exchange rate between Gaian and Human currencies wasn't great due to how hard their coins were to transport down here. Plus, it took a lot of coins to buy anything.
The best exchange rate you could find was something like a 4:1 rate on Gaian money to euros.
…You'd avoid making the swap for now. You could always come back when you were actually not-exiled.
Taking some money out of your account though, you did that the time to eat dinner.
Over the weekend, you looked into magical items. Those not linked the the user that you could maybe request as a Terra Knight.
Well, first of all, there were enchanted weapons, but those were almost useless to Terra Knights as their spears were almost always better to use.
Enchanted armour was better, but stupidly expensive. Far outside of your price range. That said, in the best world you weren't getting hit much in the first place.
Rings another miscellaneous items weren't that much better. You could almost certainly purchase a ring of swimming for yourself… if that was a thing you'd want to do.
No, for your part there were only three real things to be interested in.
Foreign tools, inventions/gadgets and Artifacts.
The first contained things like a Memory Replacement Device (Removes memories from humans) and Nutrition Tablets (You can take one to restore your reiatsu and health in an emergency) from the eastern soul society or Implants (Only their most basic stuff and the price is greatly increased) and power cloaks (Invisibility cloaks that fail against the spiritually aware, they greatly jack up the price which is why they're rarely bought) from the western soul society.
Inventions and gadgets are one-off creations by those rare geniuses who could figure them out. There was no infrastructure in place to mass produce them so you really just had to place an order for something you wanted and wait. All kinds of things could be created, there's almost nothing they can't do in fact. If you wanted… lets say "A potion that massively increases the amount of reiatsu you have available to use for a short time." Then sure, you could order that made.
Artifacts are similar but they're outright magical in nature instead of just being either normal technology or magitechnology. They require truly legendary masters to create. The list of Gaians skilled enough to make them is short enough that you could probably count them on one hand. While Artifacts can be amazingly potent (You'd heard of one that could greatly increase the effectiveness of training for example) they were also costly to make for their owners. They couldn't be bought with money, just earned by good deeds.
All were expensive or difficult to get, but you could hope.
Nothing that strange took place over the weekend. You all still thought that the trip was still a long time away so there wasn't any real tension as the week grew to a close and the next one began.
What would you be doing during the first half of this week?
[ ] {Talk} Write in (With who and about what?)
[ ] {Spar} Write in (Who do you want to ask for a spar? Adamus will refuse.)
[ ] {Extracurricular} Write in (After regular lessons have finished, what sort of things do you study)
There are many forms of specialised equipment, the only question is what are you actually able to afford? As a note, if you start using a lot of equipment, I'll start giving equipment to your enemies that would have it, just because you're already broken and I'd need a balancing mechanic.
Something sad you realised when you got to the end of that book was that the old Commander had died recently. Within the last few years at least. So you wouldn't get to speak to him in person about any of this.
Unfortunate, would have been good to pick his brain.
Also... interesting that another holy user was loving well outside the Empire.
Don't have time for a plan at the moment plane is taking off. A nice update though!
[X] Plan: Building Connections
-[X] {Spar} Try to push Hesiodio to his next level.
-[X] {Talk} Tuliendra: Ask about her hobbies, and places she likes to go for fun. She seems shy so just kind of sit with her sometimes if that's alright with her.
-[X] {Talk} Seoihilda: Talk about hopes and plans for after the academy, see if she's interested in chess or the strategy games you made.
Alright, I'm not 100% happy with this plan. I realized Sigubert is a minor noble not a commoner so he probably wouldn't be able to talk to us. I'd add some extracurricular actions but we did a lot of those last turn, and I can't think of any more. Hopefully I'm right about the two I chose to talk to being commoners.
The technical term for the rank of the Commander that dealt with the abyssal was "Knight General" who is in charge of Terra Knight operations throughout most of the regions far away from the Empire's heartland.
When you get not-exiled, you'll likely be acting under the current knight General's directions. That was Gernot, you'd seen him during the Abyssal uprising as it happened. He'd been with the force that had come out when they'd gone to attack the palace itself.
Gernot had taken the position when the old Knight General had gone into retirement which you'd read about in that other record.
Once he'd retired, he'd gon to live somewhere under Africa, though the book you were reading didn't specify exactly where. Apparently it was one of his favourite places while he had been an active knight and in case of emergencies he could still fight.
Africa apparently had a problem with not enough Hollows being defeated so those kinds of problems were more likely then they'd otherwise be.
You also looked into exactly how his innate ability functioned. How did his divinity let him remove something so thoroughly that it stayed dead?
Well, you'd likened it to the Quincy before and that wasn't far off. That old commander had a stranger way of fighting. No one precisely knows how or why, but his innate ability acted like a Quincy's powers. Gathering up and shaping Reishi to produce a variety of effects. He learned how to use it to form a second spear and he fought in a dual-weapon style because of it.
And due to the fact that his second spear acted "Similarly enough" to a Quincy weapon, it could destroy souls it killed. Though he'd only use it like that in the last extremes, normally finishing hollows off with his true spear to allow them to pass on through the cycle properly.
Something sad you realised when you got to the end of that book was that the old Commander had died recently. Within the last few years at least. So you wouldn't get to speak to him in person about any of this.
No, for your part there were only three real things to be interested in.
Foreign tools, inventions/gadgets and Artifacts.
The first contained things like a Memory Replacement Device (Removes memories from humans) and Nutrition Tablets (You can take one to restore your reiatsu and health in an emergency) from the eastern soul society or Implants (Only their most basic stuff and the price is greatly increased) and power cloaks (Invisibility cloaks that fail against the spiritually aware, they greatly jack up the price which is why they're rarely bought) from the western soul society.
Inventions and gadgets are one-off creations by those rare geniuses who could figure them out. There was no infrastructure in place to mass produce them so you really just had to place an order for something you wanted and wait. All kinds of things could be created, there's almost nothing they can't do in fact. If you wanted… lets say "A potion that massively increases the amount of reiatsu you have available to use for a short time." Then sure, you could order that made.
Artifacts are similar but they're outright magical in nature instead of just being either normal technology or magitechnology. They require truly legendary masters to create. The list of Gaians skilled enough to make them is short enough that you could probably count them on one hand. While Artifacts can be amazingly potent (You'd heard of one that could greatly increase the effectiveness of training for example) they were also costly to make for their owners. They couldn't be bought with money, just earned by good deeds.
[X] Plan: Building Connections
-[X] {Spar} Try to push Hesiodio to his next level.
-[X] {Talk} Tuliendra: Ask about her hobbies, and places she likes to go for fun. She seems shy so just kind of sit with her sometimes if that's alright with her.
-[X] {Talk} Seoihilda: Talk about hopes and plans for after the academy, see if she's interested in chess or the strategy games you made.
The first thing you wanted to do in the new week was push Hesiodio up. This was not an attempt for personal training, you had taken enough handicaps to make this fair.
That meant you were both wearing a lot of weighted clothes, he was still wearing more than you but when you'd done some quick tests, you'd found that with these weights you were both slowed down to the same sort of level, making the match fairer.
You'd also accepted things like "No use of Kido or innate ability." Though you did think he needed more practice at dealing with those.
Reiatsu use was still allowed (Since it would help you both move better in all these weights.)
The fight would only go until blood was drawn (It was a good-enough measure of skill in these situations and it didn't force you to grab the healers for a serious problem.
The goal was to stretch him to and beyond his limits so you couldn't hold back in the slightest except for the previously mentioned limits.
Blocking your strike, Hesiodio began a string of attacks.
His full attack:
First strike: 10+9+5 (Reiatsu)
Your defence: 8+13-2 (Charged last turn)
Damage: 2d6+6, 6
Second strike: 10+4
Your defence: 1+13-2 (Charged last turn)
Damage: 2d6+6, 4
Two wounds, neither of which were bleeding. First blood requires a wound that's actually serious to count. These light scratches weren't enough to let him win.
You retaliated, a flurry of attacks meeting his a moment later.
Your full attack:
First strike: 3+9+10 (Reiatsu)
His defence: 1+5
Damage: 3d6+2, 7
Second strike: 7+4
His defence: 12+5
After he hit you with a more powerful strike than normal, you realised you were being pressured more than you'd expected. You needed to push him harder if he was going to learn anything.
Your full attack:
First strike: 6+9+10 (Reiatsu)
His defence: 13+5+10 (Reiatsu)
Second strike: 2+4+10 (Reiatsu)
His defence: 9+5+10 (Reiatsu)
With luck you'd been able to deflect those attacks. Hesiodio wouldn't fall for the triple attack feint again so you might as well bet everything on a single strike.
Your attack: 17+9+16 (Reiatsu)
His defence: 8+5+15 (Reiatsu)
Damage: 3d6+2+31 (Reiatsu), 33
That was enough to help Hesiodio become stronger at least. Not that it helped him unlock his ability.
…Was it possible to have as much reiatsu as he did and not have an ability at all? That sounded unlikely but you didn't really know the specifics. Maybe he had one and just hadn't noticed it…?
Hmm. It was hard to say. He certainly didn't believe had one though and it was causing him to push himself harder in his training.
The next day, you wanted to try spending time with some of the members of your class you hadn't gotten to spend a lot of time with over the years you'd spent here.
Tuilendra was first on that list. You hadn't talked to her much but from what you'd heard, she'd also managed to learn Kido before the final year (Though she only did it last year).
She was a Reido specialist but her focus on that and Reiatsu healing were putting her behind many of the other students when it came to combat.
The teachers had therefore had to focus on just getting her up to a level where she could graduate into the Igneous Order where she could complete her proper training later.
Finding time to chat with her, you asked about her hobbies. She thought about it but kind of just admitted that she spent a lot of time at the library or helping out with the medical staff. She didn't really do much that normal people would see as fun but she found her work satisfying at least.
Fair enough. You spent some time with her in the library as you like hanging out there too. While there you discussed the spells she'd learned.
"Tairei is a really interesting spell for being categorised as the first Reido spell." She'd say "It allows the spellcaster and assistants to transfer reiatsu to a target. This can offset the symptoms of the overuse of reiatsu and allow the target to keep going with a refilled energy reserve."
"Gogakunosai is really useful when dealing with other supernatural- or even just normal human- cultures. It allows you to learn any language for a short time to communicate easily."
"I'll be learning Kaigenkuyou soon, it blesses an area making it harder for creatures like hollows to fight there. It's one of the more interesting spells on the list I'll learn soon, most of the second grade spells are… not that helpful? Omoikkiri is just a more expensive and shorter range version of Shukufuku Kamiwaza No Dageki Oo, that's a first grade spell that I already know that can make targets stronger, swifter, more hearty, that sort of thing. Omoikkiri can only boost strength and it's more expensive to use with no real upside."
That sort of thing.
While in the library you also spotted Kryako and Adamus quietly talking while looking over a collection of books. You weren't sure what they were cooking up- well. No, it was probably a way that Adamus could beat you. It will probably take him a long time though.
The next day you spoke with Seoihilda. In this last year she'd had to put aside her study of Gaian Spear Dancing to practise more to become a Terra Knight. It had actually upset her quite a bit at first from what you'd heard. It seemed she'd only have the time to study it properly when she was a Terra Knight.
You sat with her and talked about it. You asked what about it interested her so much and she explained that true masters of spear dancing could, in a manner of speaking, dodge literally any attack in the same way someone would dodge one of your orbs.
IE: They could do a reflex-based evasion against even normal attacks for half damage
"Plus, they have multiple secret techniques to take advantage of openings left by enemies who thought they'd escaped you or to strike rapidly with your spear." She claimed.
Well… maybe it was just because you didn't focus on your spearplay but you didn't really get it.
You asked her if she wanted to play chess or another strategy game with you but she turned you down.
"Even if I'm not allowed to put my all into studying spear dancing, I still want to put time into it somehow."
She left soon after, she was one of the leaders of the spear fencing class now so that was another responsibility she had now.
Well then.
Not that you knew it, the end of this relaxing period of school time was coming up. Just a few more days until you'd be thrown into action. What did you want to do in that time?
[ ] {Talk} Write in (With who and about what?)
[ ] {Spar} Write in (Who do you want to ask for a spar? Adamus will refuse.)
[ ] {Extracurricular} Write in (After regular lessons have finished, what sort of things do you study)
[ ] {Craft?} Write in (Admittedly you are a terrible, terrible crafter. You have no real area where you show any skill in crafting. Even so, you could try to build some sort of low quality gadget. A one-time use thing? Write in ideas and I can note how possible they'd be)
I should have added the crafting option last time but I forgot. You are terrible at crafting though, +0 modifiers across the board (Because they are trained only skills). Even so, if your goal was to create something one-use and weak, it should be possible. Most things you should be able to craft would take only one day.
Kalina fighting more without Kido or innate abilities is good since she relies a lot upon them so using her other skills is good. Also it's good that she's making new friends.
[X] Meeting new people and seeing places.
-[X] Wander around and speak with someone new
-[X] Look for an interesting place at your academy
-[X] Challenge someone to a game of chess
I figure getting an IC idea of what's possible would be helpful
Even so, if your goal was to create something one-use and weak, it should be possible. Most things you should be able to craft would take only one day.
Interestingly, no to both. It's due to a strange hole in the gadget rules (It's based on a superhero section of BleachD20 which makes magic work a completly different way.)
You didn't really have all that much to do during the last few days of safety.
On Thursday, you took the time after classes to wander around the capital city. It was strange to think that you might never see this place again once this year was done. You had spent somewhere between a quarter and a third of your life so far here.
On the scale of Gaian life, these six years were tiny, but it felt longer for you.
While wandering about, you bumped into someone you hadn't met before. An experienced Terra Knight.
His name was Dusol and he was a scout, one who adventured on the surface to keep an eye on human politics and society.
Since you suspected you'd be going up there soon, you wanted to ask him about his journeys.
"I've visited every country of value." The man claimed pridefully "And I've got tales of from them all. I've fought Quincys in the new world, they actually use guns instead of the traditional bow. I even saw one use Letzt Stil."
"Letzt Stil?" You asked about the term you hadn't heard before.
The storytelling knight nodded "It's a power Quincys have that sacrifices all of their power for a few minutes of strength. Wasteful, but I can tell you that they were only an inch away from killing me."
He continued on "I've fought the Bounts of Romania, I defeated Baron Andrei of the Attentater Clan."
"...The what?" You'd never heard of Bounts before.
Dusol shook his head "True Vampires, the natural born ones, unlike the ones that the soul society messed up and released unintentionally.."
Wow there was a lot there that he'd glossed over. You asked him to explain and he went into the generalities.
"A Bount, also called a Bounto, are an ancient race. Well, not as ancient as us, or even the humans. I think Quincys might be one of the only peoples younger than them. They subsist on souls, a classic Devourer creature, much like Hollows in some way. In the distant past, a war was declared against them due to the damage they could do to the cycle and it only stopped when a pact was formed."
He nodded "You see, Bounts need to feed on souls to live, but they don't need to kill their targets and if a target survives it will heal up from the feeding in a few days. They were forced to sign a pact limiting them to non-lethal feeding. Of course, some dislike that arrangement and need to be put down, such as the previously mentioned Baron Andrei."
"Back to history, during the war against the Quincys one thousand years ago, a group of scientists in soul society had an idea to create a weapon. They took the souls of Bounts and fused empty swords to them. The result is what are called 'Artificial Bounts' or just 'Vampires.' those souls got lost into the cycle of reincarnation and the rest is history."
You continued to talk with him for a while before heading back to the Academy when it was getting late.
On Friday you looked for somewhere interesting in the Academy. Really this felt like something you should have done on an earlier year.
You knew this building well enough though so poked around at some of the more hidden places.
Search: 17+12+6 (Cheeky action dice because they're all refreshed in a day anyway)
When poking around the library, you ended up finding a concealed switch. Pressing it moved a bookcase slightly to the side, revealing a hidden area.
The hidden area wasn't that big, but you did find some interesting books back there. Sadly not anything like "Forbidden research" or "Ancient secrets."
Granted the books were very old, but they weren't really secrets.
You found one history book that had something interesting in it though, a damaged and torn page. It was hard to read but you were able to make out a bit of text.
"The lead researcher theorised." a tear in the paper "Split into three factions." interrupted by dirt and damage "Dark monsters."
This was a book about the excavation of ruins, specifically a very damaged chapter where they went over murals. Maybe the kind of mural you'd found before appeared in other ruins. Maybe those murals would have the missing tile that prevented you from reading what was on it.
Well, whatever.
With some more poking around, you found the room had another mechanism in one of the back walls but you couldn't figure out how to get it to work. In the end you just came out the way you'd come in.
On Saturday you wanted to play chess with someone. The issue obviously became that the nobles you normally played with were meant to be ignoring you now.
After a while of asking, you managed to get Myrshai interested in a game. You'd never really interacted with him that much but you knew he did great on the written work and not nearly as good on the practical.
You blinked blearily up at the dark room. It must be early if the morning lights hadn't even come on yet.
Climbing to your feet, your classmates who shared this room with you were getting up too.
"Why is it ringing?" Seoihilda asked with exhaustion "It's meant to be the weekend."
Yawning, you were lighting the room's candles before looking up at the wall clock.
It was 3 AM.
"What?" Tuilendra mumbled as she too saw the time.
That would explain why it was still dark outside, though not why the bell was ringing so intently.
"I'll check it out." You told the others "You can stay back here if you want?"
After a pause though, they both started getting up too, they wouldn't leave you to go alone.
As you were making your way up to the bell, you bumped into some of the rest of your class. Adamus was here, but he was pointedly not looking your way.
Most of the class was here, the only exception seemed to be Hesiodio strangely. You asked Myrshai as they shared the same room but apparently Hesiodio just hadn't been woken up by the bell.
They just left him to sleep as they came out.
…Actually, that was a good point. That bell was loud, why wasn't everyone getting up to investigate it?
"We'll find the answers to that up there probably." Endymad answered the question you hadn't realised you'd asked out loud. He led the team up to the bell tower.
The Academy's bell was glowing with silver light and resonating endlessly. It wasn't being struck multiple times, it was just one long note.
It had to be charged with a lot of reiatsu for this and therefore you were hesitant to try and touch it. Endymad was more reckless though, laying his hand upon the bell.
The tone of the bell shifted, becoming quieter. The silver light moved too, it stopped covering the bell entirely and just morphed to become an image on the bell's surface. You weren't sure what the map was meant to be at first but Tuilendra knew.
"It's a map of the surface world!"
Indeed, the continents that made up the human world had appeared on the bell and were rotating around as if to give all of your class a better view.
As it rotated, you all made out something in Africa. There was a spot in the north east of the continent that was lit up with gold light instead of silver.
It was a small dot the size of your thumb but it appeared to be echoing in some way, golden vibrations shimmering off it into the silver.
Then all of a sudden, the bell became bright again and the ringing returned to full volume. This time though it appeared it was waking more people up as some teachers came running, demanding to know what was going on. As Endymad explained, you touched the bell and it shifted back into map mode. Now there were two dots in Africa, further to the south west.
While the teachers were here and before they'd decided on anything, were there any questions you wanted to say?
[ ] Write in (Questions about this, statements, feel free to make your mark on the story)
[ ] No, just remain quiet and see what is decided.
I highly advise asking questions! This whole situation is strange and asking questions will help you understand more.
Also, if the map is a bit hard to read because it's yellow on white, the first dot is roughly on the nile river, the second is in the country known as Chad.
[X] Stating the obvious
-[X] Ask the teachers what if anything those dots might represent.
-[X] Offer course there being TWO dots is also interesting...
-[X] You think one of those dots is by the pyramids...
-[X] Ask who brought the bell here
-[X] Ask the teachers who woke up if this is an assignment or test of some kind. Or if they are as surprised as we are.
-[X] If they weren't aware of it, Ask if it might be enemy action.
Natural Bounts are a thing but are pretty young good to know, also while Dusol is bragging he does seem pretty worldly and like he could offer good advice.
[X] Stating the obvious
-[X] Ask the teachers what if anything those dots might represent.
-[X] Offer course there being TWO dots is also interesting...
-[X] You think one of those dots is by the pyramids...
-[X] Ask who brought the bell here
-[X] Ask the teachers who woke up if this is an assignment or test of some kind. Or if they are as surprised as we are.
-[X] If they weren't aware of it, Ask if it might be enemy action.
When you mentioned Africa, for a hot second I almost thought you might be going for a Xenosaga/Blade crossover (I actually had to pull up a map and check if one of those countries was Kenya), lol. Good use of the academy with hidden secrets trope though! And "The Bell That Cannot Ring" is a good music choice for the type of ambiance you're going for.
When you mentioned Africa, for a hot second I almost thought you might be going for a Xenosaga/Blade crossover (I actually had to pull up a map and check if one of those countries was Kenya), lol. Good use of the academy with hidden secrets trope though! And "The Bell That Cannot Ring" is a good music choice for the type of ambiance you're going for.
I'll be honest, I had thought for a moment to put the second dot at Lake Turkana, but it wouldn't really make a ton of sense in-universe (Plus I misremembered and thought the lake was much further south. Having just checked the map now, I entirely could have had that joke make sense.)
The first dot was always going to be egypt though, the second dot was going to be placed "Somewhere near, but not in, egypt."
While I was picking the soundtrack, I really wanted to use a CS1 song, then I wanted to use a CS3 song, you can probably guess which songs in each case but neither them sounded quite right for this situation (The first was too calm, the second too dramatic) so I had to go with Zero.
I really wanted to use a CS1 song, then I wanted to use a CS3 song, you can probably guess which songs in each case but neither them sounded quite right for this situation (The first was too calm, the second too dramatic)
Hmm, I think I know which one's you're talking about, but the only one who's name I can remember is the "Spiral of Erebos" from 3.
Still, Zero and Azur's music are actually really good for when it comes to the supernatural ambiance, since that's the arc where they really started diving into the more esoteric elements of Zemuria.
I'm definitely very interested in seeing where this questline goes from here.
