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NorseQuest (A Norse Xianxia)

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getting the refugees out is a good idea, but we probably can't avoid combat here. but since Sharkmouth seems to be here too and we are bound to fight him as well, maybe we can 2v2 it? Hooknails and Sharkmouth against Halla and Sten?

another question, how far is Halla from reaching Top in combat ranking? she was at lower top when we fought moonless night, and we have gotten much stronger since then
 
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We could fight Sharkmouth before Hooknails as a kind of starter, if you will.

Like he'd be a lovely Sharmouth caprese salad, bursting with flavour and freshness, before our hearty and delicious Pasta A La Hooknails.

Or Sharmouth is a velvet hammer to start the night off gently, before we grab a glass, some ice, a bottle of Hooknails and curl up by the fire whilst reminiscing about old times.

To put it another way, imagine Sharmouth as a nice little hit of uppers whilst we're in the Uber to the club, before we're doing huge lines of raw Bolivian Hooknails in the bathroom at 3AM before going home with this guy who says he makes pilates videos for TikTok.
 
Blademaster said:
getting the refugees out is a good idea, but we probably can't avoid combat here. but since Sharkmouth seems to be here too and we are bound to fight him as well, maybe we can 2v2 it?
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We are in no way forced to fight Sharkmouth. He might want to fight us over Lars (though actually he'd prefer to fight Sten), but we are under zero obligation to indulge him. Having Sten fight him is probably fine, but even that is a bit of a risk.

We also don't actually know he's here. I'd say it's likely, but it's just a guess.

Skippy said:
We could fight Sharkmouth before Hooknails as a kind of starter, if you will.
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I could not be more against this idea. I object absolutely and in the strongest terms. Sharkmouth is not a joke or a starter, he is a serious foe. Fighting two serious foes in a row is a good way to get very very dead for no reason.

People remember Sharkmouth's fight as a bit of a joke, but that's only true because he was fighting Wolfwind who is the only other person we've ever met on Steinarr's level. There is, frankly, a decent chance he's almost as badass as Hooknails is (not more so because Hooknails is in charge, but he seems the second in command, if the voice we heard really is him), and we cannot reliably survive two fights against superior opponents in a row. Even surviving one such fight is dicey...not so dicey we shouldn't do it, but dicey.

Acting like we can beat Sharkmouth easily and without expending resources we may need against Hooknails is the definition of hubris.

To be clear, I'm not saying Sharkmouth is unbeatable, I suspect we can in fact win against him fairly reliably, but not without going all out, revealing many of our tricks, and burning significant resources, and we can't afford to do that right before fighting Hooknails.
 
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Bold of you to assume I remembered Sharkmouth's fight at all. 😅

Honestly I'd completely forgotten about him until people started talking about him like a guy we should have remembered, as which point I was like "Yeah, that guy.".

Anyway, if we err in any direction in fights, it is being underconfident. It would be a fun change of pace to make a mistake in the other direction for once! But fine, rob me of getting to stand with our arms crossed and monologue about how our foes have no chance against our perfect techniques, with your "reasoned arguments" and "evidence", why don't you. Spoil my fun!
 
if we are fighting Hooknails though we probably want to discuss strategy early. the guy is not only very strong, but knows a lot of our tricks and abilities, and is very good at predicting our moves. he's by no means an unbeatable foe, Halla is far stronger than she was with the dwarves, but it will be a fight we need to be very smart about
Skippy said:
Anyway, if we err in any direction in fights, it is being underconfident. It would be a fun change of pace to make a mistake in the other direction for once! But fine, rob me of getting to stand with our arms crossed and monologue about how our foes have no chance against our perfect techniques, with your "reasoned arguments" and "evidence", why don't you. Spoil my fun!
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hey going against Hooknails by itself is a tough battle. by no means an easy one and definitely an epic one. usually Im with you when it comes to risk taking but here, its not just dangerous. there is just no reason to it, in world or narratively. it would just take weight from the Hooknails fight
 
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@Imperial Fister Last time we fought Hooknails, Punching Up was used. Is Punching Up still able to be triggered against Hooknails? Mainly asking to get an estimation on if we have improved faster than he has, and therefore how well the duel that we need to have with him will go.
 
To be clear, I was kidding around a bit, I had kind of thought the analogy of Hooknails as a bowl of pasta might have given it away.

Anyway yeah, we probably do want to strategize a bit. I think the rough idea is to use Devouring Blaze to clear through his spears and and try some close-in attacks for round one, and then use a Finale in Round 2 or 3? Either Time Stands Still (which given the new mechanics we will want to really work up or Stoked meter or have all our FoYL uses saved for, given he's a Shapecrafter and likely has high Hamr and might have his own ways of adding dice), or maybe we finally get to use the FTB.
 
I would be more concerned about the other people they have. I doubt they're down for 1v1s as opposed to, say, 8v1s.
 
Shard said:
I would be more concerned about the other people they have. I doubt they're down for 1v1s as opposed to, say, 8v1s.
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if they do it 8v1 then we can make it a 100v8. which is much less favorable to them.

they only get a 1v1 because of hostages. if they try to storm us then our side is likely to do the same

and not accepting the outcome of said duel is likely major Nid. its a complete breaking of one's word
 
Skippy said:
Bold of you to assume I remembered Sharkmouth's fight at all. 😅

Honestly I'd completely forgotten about him until people started talking about him like a guy we should have remembered, as which point I was like "Yeah, that guy.".
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Fair enough. I think the most relevant part to remember about him is that he was definitely more badass than Tryggr and Trausti by a fair bit. So are we these days, but he's not gonna be an easy fight.

Blademaster said:
if we are fighting Hooknails though we probably want to discuss strategy early. the guy is not only very strong, but knows a lot of our tricks and abilities, and is very good at predicting our moves. he's by no means an unbeatable foe, Halla is far stronger than she was with the dwarves, but it will be a fight we need to be very smart about
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Hooknails knows a surprisingly small selection of our abilities since the fight was very short. All he saw were Flashfire Cleave, Heated Shroud, Slipstream, Ember-Wing Cloak, Sparkbomb, Inertia-Arresting Throw, Contested Movement, and us inventing Semi-Halting Vortex (which we should assume means he knows about Halting Vortex). Plus Punching Up and Puncture.

That's actually pretty far from our whole arsenal. He may have heard more from Lars (Knee-Groin Trick and Kindle Spinner would be the ones he heard of there, plus definitely Halting Vortex), and Songbird may have mentioned our exploits against the Thanes (I don't think those involved anything not on the above list), but that still leaves a fair amount of stuff he won't have seen. Basically all of Stoker State for one thing. He might know its general stuff from Songbird, but something like Threadcutter would likely still come as a surprise.

Skippy said:
Anyway yeah, we probably do want to strategize a bit. I think the rough idea is to use Devouring Blaze to clear through his spears and and try some close-in attacks for round one, and then use a Finale in Round 3? Either Time Stands Still (which given the new mechanics we will want to really work up or Stoked meter or have all our FoYL uses saved for, given he's a Shapecrafter and likely has high Hamr and might have his own ways of adding dice), or maybe we finally get to use the FTB.
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Agreed entirely on Devouring Blaze. We want to burn for full Slowing Slog in this fight as well...we've seen no evidence Hooknails has super high damage, favoring multiple lower damage attacks, which Slowing Slog is very useful against. He probably does have some high damage stuff, but it's not his strong suit from what we saw.

I also don't think we should commit to using a Finale at all. Finales are situational...if we use one in a fight, it should be based on the specific situation, not decided in advance. We may well need one on Hooknails and should be ready to bust one out if needed, but which and when are very dependent on the specific situation.

Shard said:
I would be more concerned about the other people they have. I doubt they're down for 1v1s as opposed to, say, 8v1s.
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I mean...we outnumber them 6 or 7 to 1. Why would we agree to that? Sure they have hostages, but letting them kill us doesn't help the hostages and that's what giving them those odds would be. They are negotiating from a position of weakness and know it...they'll take single combat if they can get it because it's a huge improvement for them.
 
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Eh, I think given how big of a thing duelling is in Norse culture, we can probably find a way to make it work? Either taking place within a larger battle where everyone backs off and lets us have a scrap, or as a formally agreed thing before they head off in their ships. This is more true than it normally would be because we're Fated to fight, and Halla seems to be aware of that in-character, it stands to reason Hooknails is as well, which means he'd likely not refuse a challenge to fight one-on-one.

Especially as I suspect Hooknails is (incorrectly) quite confident in his chances of winning, he'd probably be quite happy for a chance to beat up a champion of the Hading in front of the Hadingmen in a situation where they aren't allowed to retaliate. If his guys are going to be leaving with their tails tucked between their legs, in Hooknails' mind beating us in a formal duel would probably be a good way to try and take the bitter taste out of their mouths.

But really we need to see how this whole hostage situation resolves and whether things end up in a big melee or not. If it does then I expect we'll still end up duelling him, but it may be a bit more chaotic.
 
They have a concerning amount of information-gathering capabilities, I should note. It's possible that their measure of us is substantially more accurate than we would like. See Halfdan's farm being targeted.
 
Skippy said:
Eh, I think given how big of a thing duelling is in Norse culture, we can probably find a way to make it work? Either taking place within a larger battle where everyone backs off and lets us have a scrap, or as a formally agreed thing before they head off in their ships. This is more true than it normally would be because we're Fated to fight, and Halla seems to be aware of that in-character, it stands to reason Hooknails is as well, which means he'd likely not refuse a challenge to fight one-on-one.

Especially as I suspect Hooknails is (incorrectly) quite confident in his chances of winning, he'd probably be quite happy for a chance to beat up a champion of the Hading in front of the Hadingmen in a situation where they aren't allowed to retaliate. If his guys are going to be leaving with their tails tucked between their legs, in Hooknails' mind beating us in a formal duel would probably be a good way to try and take the bitter taste out of their mouths.
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I think if we agree to a duel we can probably get terms like 'You release the hostages either way, if you win we'll swear to allow you to rejoin your comrades at your ships, if we win your men will surrender on condition of us offering to ransom them to their own people rather than enthrall them." Remember, we have the superior forces by a lot, we can leverage that for a deal that favors us as long as we don't push it too far.

Or something like that, anyway. We can get a deal where the hostages are released either way and the stakes of the duel only effect Hooknails people (and Halla, if she's the one dueling him).

Skippy said:
But really we need to see how this whole hostage situation resolves and whether things end up in a big melee or not. If it does then I expect we'll still end up duelling him, but it may be a bit more chaotic.
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I highly doubt this descends into a melee...Hooknails is smug, not stupid. If it does, it'll be us and most of our friends against him...we're Fated to fight him, not do so one-on-one, and with the numbers disparity we'd get help.

Shard said:
They have a concerning amount of information-gathering capabilities, I should note. It's possible that their measure of us is substantially more accurate than we would like. See Halfdan's farm being targeted.
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I'll repeat, so far all their info is stuff Horra could've told Lars and Sharkmouth. They might have more info sources than that, but there's no evidence of it.
 
Imperial Fister said:
Mist explodes from his body as his presence vanishes. As the reinforcements burst into the room and the mist disappears, all that's left is a punched-through burl.
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So burl teleportation to places other than the ginungagap dont require bridges. perhaps burl teleportation can only teleport to a general area if you dont have an anchor which guides the teleportation to the spesific place.
 
fearsome hill said:
So burl teleportation to places other than the ginungagap dont require bridges. perhaps burl teleportation can only teleport to a general area if you dont have an anchor which guides the teleportation to the spesific place.
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It could also be that there's no real landmarks in the ginnungagap, and you might need to do the "save" an experience thing with a location, so only the bridges in the ginnungagap are recognisably different from anywhere else there. Or its as the bridges are "safe", as rereading the updates one bank of the river is covered in Abysslings, and Helshird einherjar on the other bank, and both sides want to kill you.
 
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