[X] What's up with the black fire?
[X] "So, the way we normally train is by refining our control of the BodyHamr, acuity of the MindHugr, and those with strong sensitivity or the right opportunities can embody their SpiritFylgja, I'm curious what you call your own focuses in those fields."
[X] Plan Defence in Depth
-[X] **General**
-[X] Activate Slipstream (-16 Orthstirr)
-[X] Ember-Winged Cloak (-6 Orthstirr)
-[X] Activate Stoker State Stage 2 (-6 Orthstirr)
-[X] Stoke our Frami (+187 Orthstirr)
-[X] **Layered** **Defence**
-[X] 42d6 Defense (37d6 tricks)
-[X] Summon a 50d6+8 Atgeir Bodyguard (19d6, 1 Bonus Die, -39 Orthstirr)
-[X] Summon a 50d6+8 Sword Guard (19d6, 1 Bonus Die, -43 Orthstirr)
-[X] If both our guards get taken down, against average-looking attacks, start using up to four:
-[X] 42d6 Reinforced x28 Honed x7 Slice-Aside Tricks (1d6, + 5 Bonus Dice, -49 Orthstirr per use), with our riposte being one of the Basic Attacks below.
-[X] Against scary-looking attacks, see below under Counter-Attack.
-[X] **Attack**
-[X] 44d6 Attack (35d6 tricks)
-[X] 52d6+4 Sharpened x8 Lightning-Charged Flashfire Cleave attack using Puncture (35d6, -39 Orthstirr)
-[X] Hit with up to nine 8d6+4 Honedx7 Lightning-Charged Basic Attacks (1d6, -8 Orthstirr each)
-[X] **Counter-Attack**
-[X] Respond to any particularly scary-looking attacks with Contested Movement, first using our Stoked Dice as a bonus, and Fight of Your Life thereafter, with our counter-attack being another Sharpened Lightning-Charged Flashfire Cleave with Puncture (-24 Orthstirr)
--[X] Try and use this counter-attack at least twice, even if he does not throw any particularly scary-looking attacks.
0~0~0
You meet Gabriel's gaze through the slits in his helm and nod. Sagaseeker rests on your shoulder as Gabriel extinguishes Sparrowflight's flames. A wordless agreement to a momentary respite is made as you breathe in that cold, crisp, winter air.
You run a hand through your sweat-slick hair as Gabriel clasps his hands over his sword's sparrow tail-shaped pommel in prayer. You eye the steam rising from where hot iron meets cold snow. What were those black flames? Was it a trick or a prayer or something else entirely?
'You could just ask him,' you snort as Blackhand makes a good point. Well, there's no harm in trying!
"Hey, Gabriel?" Your voice echoes across the shallow, snow-covered valley as the Squire opens his eyes. His fingers fly through a cross-shaped sign over his armored body as he finishes his prayer.
"Yes?" He regards you with newfound focus — this respite having done wonders for both your Frenzy and his.
"What's up with your, uh," you wiggle a curious finger at his steaming sword, "the black fire thing you were using?"
"It's called the Blackstone Blade, a Martial Style named after the blessed coalmines that gave my family its name." He stiffens with clear pride in his family's accomplishments.
'Blessed coal, eh? Sounds like a good target for some adventuring. Er, primarily mercantile-focused adventuring, that is.'
You stifle a rolling of the eyes as you mentally note that little piece of information. Blessed coal could very well provide some nice benefits to your forging and a nice cushion to your purse, should you be so inclined.
"And one more thing," before you get a chance to to ask your question, Gabriel cuts you off.
"Before you ask that, allow me to make my own query." He tilts his head to the side as you nod and cede the floor his way, "You said that you were a descendant of somebody called... What was it?" He snaps his fingers, sparks flying from the scrape of armor on armor, "Sigurdr Fafnesbane or something? And furthermore, what do you mean by 'taking the first steps in composing your own saga'?"
You blink, not really having expected him to do that. "Uh, the first is that my great-great-grandfather was Sigurdr Fafnesbane, who slew and ate the heart of Fafnir the Dragon."
"And the second?"
"Uh..." You trail off, cringing at how suspicious you sound, "Fight now, talk later?"
Gabriel is silent for a long time. Finally, he offers a shallow nod as he readies Sparrowflight. "I'll be holding you to that talk."
You and Blackhand wince together but heft Sagaseeker all the same. That will be an interesting conversation...
You don't have long to dread the future as the spar resumes.
You and Gabriel lock eyes as wind streaks off your body and zeal rises to the surface of his form. The golden-white glow of internal strength radiates off his body as it merges with his armor and, before your very eyes, the armor mends itself in a brief flash of light.
However, you're far from idle as Gabriel repairs his armor. Crimson flames engulf your body in an aura of power as you shoot off into the air on wings of crackling fire. Your heart grinds into a furious, roaring tempo as you push yourself to ever-greater heights.
Flinging your hand to the side, you shape orthstirr into a pair of ghostly weapons. The specters of violence float beside you as the vague shapes coalesce into sword and atgeir. Just in time, too, as the first of Gabriel's attacks are flying your way.
Blazing balls of black fire race towards you like stones loosed from a sling. No larger than a node of coal, the fireballs streak across the sky with black fire trailing in their wake. More fire leaps from Sparrowflight at the apex of every swing and swiftly join their fellows above the ground. (There's no way for the fireballs to win)
The ghostly pair of sword and atgeir race to meet the incoming onslaught. As one, they dart to and fro as they spin and twirl. Every motion dashes more flaming attacks from the sky as black fire fervor gives way to crimson-colored orthstirr. Even as they casually deal with the attacks, the black flames eat away at the ghostly specters. It won't last forever, but that knowledge is second to the realization sparking in your thoughts.
His attacks aren't strong enough to break through your guard!
Gabriel realizes it the moment you do, but you're already in motion by the time by he stops the flurry. With you having the slightest edge in speed and your weapon guards dealing with any remaining fireballs — burning out in the process — you're free to throw yourself into a Flashfire Cleave.
Blazing straight at him on wings of fire, you raise the lightning-clad Sagaseeker high over your smiling head. He meets your steel gaze with eyes the color of the sky. Sparrowflight leaps into position as he prepares to receive your charge.
Sagaseeker strikes Sparrowflight as clashing power rages all around. Orthstirr and fervor dig deep trenches in the snow as sword meets atgeir.
Gabriel's foot slips in the snow. You grin and press the advantage as you pour more power into the blow.
But to your shock and surprise, humor glints in Gabriel's gaze. Your eyes widen as he kicks off the slip-packed snow, escaping your cleave — or so he thinks. (Perfect Dodge trumps Flashfire Cleave, but Puncture trumps the Perfect Dodge! 11 Armor Damage! Armor Pierced! 3 Focus Damage!)
Reality twists into a corkscrew as Sagaseeker carves a path through Knightly iron.
Reality unspins and Gabriel stumbles back, his eyes wide with shock as blood leaks from the once-fixed crevice in his armor. "H-how?!" His voice echoes across the snow-strewn valley-turned-sparring grounds, "What kind of meditation or prayer allows you to do that?!"
You grin as you rise from the shin-deep crater you left after landing. You offer a cheek, arms-spread shrug as Sagaseeker rests on your shoulder. "Nothing more than a little bit of a twist on things."
Shaking his head, Gabriel resumes his stance as you pick Sagaseeker off your shoulder. Locking eyes, you grin as you throw yourself into battle once again. (I've put the rolls for this exchange in a spoiler at the bottom)
Sparks fall in a shower as Sagaseeker and Sparrowflight ring together over and over again as your battle takes you all over the shallow valley. You dance and dart as you exchange blow after blow, neither of you managing to score so much as a cut.
A thrust from Gabriel carves locks of hair from your head as you duck and dodge. Spinning Sagaseeker around, you slap the sword away with the haft as you launch into an upwards-moving strike. Snow sprays as metal screeches against metal, Gabriel having dodged back just enough. All your attack achieves is a new scratch on his armor, left right next to the hole.
Gabriel's taking it much harder than you are. Every parried blow and dodged strike is grating to his senses. And with every missed attack, his defense grows sloppier and sloppier as his frustrations push him towards his offense. You grin internally, waiting for the right moment you know to come.
Catching an attack on the sword guard, Gabriel growls as he twists and shoves you back. Raising his sword high above his head, white-gold light shines bright from the blade as he fuels Sparrowflight with his zeal.
As he steps forward, ready to unleash his attack, you let your grin turn external as time slows down like an old length of string curls. Spinning Sagaseeker around, you throw yourself into a flaming Flashfire Cleave. (Gabriel: 32+15=67 vs Halla: 128+5=133. Halla Wins. 4 Focus Damage. Focus Broken. 9 Endurance Damage.)
Blood gushes from Gabriel's body like the spring melt as Sagaseeker hits him. Bones crunch and guts squelch as you send him flying through the air. Steam rises from his body as lightning dances up and down his armor-clad form in powerful arcs.
He hits the ground with a heavy thump and rolls to a face-down stop.
For a moment, he doesn't move and terror grips your heart. You hit him really fucking hard on a spot that had no armor to soften the blow. Christians aren't as tough as you are! H-he... could b-be dea-
With a spluttering grunt, he forces himself up with an armored arm. He throws his helmet to the side as he coughs and spits up a load of thick, phlegmy blood. From where you stand in shocked horror, the right side of his ribcage has collapsed.
Well, you breathe a sigh of relief as you wipe your brow, at least the spar's ove-
Gabriel punches the ground once, twice, three times before grabbing Sparrowflight from where it fell and leaps to his feet. An anger — no, hatred — burns in his eyes, a hatred he'd buried a long, long time ago. It's not aimed at you, not in particular, just...
'He's progressed too far, too fast and has lost himself to his wrath as a result. You have to stop him before he does things he can't take back.' Blackhand's words carry an unusual sense urgency as zeal fixes Gabriel's armor before your eyes once more.
Your open-mouthed horror turns to steel-eyed determination as Sagaseeker purrs in your hand. When someone isn't doing all that well, what can a caring friend do but support them in whatever way they can?
Gabriel is not himself right now. You stand across from him in the shallow valley, which your battle has damaged quite considerably.
Gabriel is currently extremely angry. Not at you, at someone else and himself. Mostly himself. He's frustrated with himself, while the hatred is directed at this other person. It's not very clear.
He's discarded his helmet and is suffering from a considerable amount of damage. His armor is pristine, thanks to something with zeal, but his body isn't doing too hot.
You've managed to narrow his dice range down to 150–190.
Gabriel is pulling out all the stops. He's going for the kill and staining his soul in the process. He's devoting the minimum to his defense, while his offense is ballooning to greater heights. He's got a number of attacks he could use as finishers, but he seems to have settled on two: some kind of sword move and some kind of large-scale attack.
Endurance: (13/13) | Frenzy: (5/5) (+5 to all Combat Rolls) | Armor Health: (11/17) (+4 to Defense)
Orthstirr: (121/561) | Odr: (21)
(X) Frami: 187 | ( ) Virthing: 187 | ( ) Saemd: 187
Sagaseeker has 35 orthstirr in its reservoir. It can be Sharpened 55 more times before breaking.
Your Armor has 13 orthstirr in its reservoir.
Shapeshifting is granting you (+1 Damage and +2 Attack-Speed)
Your combat pool is 86d6 and you have 0d6 Stoked Dice
What do you do?
[ ] (Plan Name)
-[ ] (Dice) Attack
-[ ] (Dice) Defense
-[ ] (Dice) Intercept
-[ ] (Dice) (Trick) (Orthstirr)
-[ ] Tactics Write in
0~0~0
AN: Well, well, well, it would seem that Gabriel is hiding more than he lets on.
While it is possible to accidentally kill people, you'll have to deal double their Endurance if you're trying to non-lethally take them down to kill them accidentally. D&D rules, sort of.
This is less a fight and more a puzzle. Can you subdue a raging Gabriel and not accidentally kill him while you're at it? And not getting killed yourself, of course.
No moratorium. I'm excited to see how you go about this one!
1.Halla Attack: 24+5=29 vs Gabriel Defense: 52+15=67. Gabriel Wins
2.Gabriel Attack: 63+15=78 vs Halla Defense: 164+9=173. Halla Wins
2.1Halla Counter-Attack: 23+5=28 vs Gabriel Defense: 50+15=65. Gabriel Wins
3.Halla Attack: 22+5=27 vs Gabriel Defense: 51+15=66. Gabriel Wins (Here, he realizes that your attacks aren't strong enough to get through his guard, so he reduces the effort considerably)
4.Gabriel Attack: 82+15=97 vs Halla Defense: 156+9=165. Halla Wins
4.1Halla Counter-Attack: 31+5=36 vs Gabriel Defense: 44+15=59. Gabriel Wins (He continues reducing effort, also out of frustration)
5.Halla Attack: 36+5=41 vs Gabriel Defense: 27+15=42. Gabriel Wins
6.Gabriel Attack: 87+15=102 vs Halla Defense: 144+9=153. Halla Wins (Gabriel's frustration rises)
6.1Halla Counter-Attack: 23+5=28 vs Gabriel Defense: 36+15=51. Gabriel Wins (He reduces effort to the minimum)
7.Halla Attack: 34+5=39 vs Gabriel Defense: 24+15=39. Gabriel Wins (He decides to give his next and final attack some zeal as his frustration rises yet further)
Interesting though, he was using Anti-Perfect techniques, but was caught flat-footed by us using one in turn. Did he just not know that wasn't exclusive to them?
Interesting though, he was using Anti-Perfect techniques, but was caught flat-footed by us using one in turn. Did he just not know that wasn't exclusive to them?
I think in the Christian Meta, there's no Puncture trick. There's Tricks (well Prayers) which do pierce Perfects. So what happens is, he thinks that Flashfire Cleave isn't one of those Perfect Defence piercing tricks. Because Christian Fighting doesn't allow for such a technique, something is either Perfect piercing or not.
Interesting though, he was using Anti-Perfect techniques, but was caught flat-footed by us using one in turn. Did he just not know that wasn't exclusive to them?
Something existing and a specific person having it are different. Him knowing it exists and knowing Halla has it are different. Shard's theory is also plausible
I'm not sure that follows? Mostly we burn Odr for more damage and that is very much not what we want right now. Maybe on IAT to trap him, but we don't have much use for it otherwise unless we're trying to get to very specific numbers and we're, like 1 off.
Zeal's in play, I don't think IAT on himself will be very helpful.
But that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do, the general idea I have here is "Bait him to go for the Sword Technique, then pop a maximum Odr Boosted Mire Ward to effectively freeze space around us, the Odr Infusion should be enough to contest his Zeal and his other tricks, which buys us time for the next phase.
Which is to disarm him, freeze Sparrowflight in space with an IAT after it's disconnected from him, and then hopefully non-lethally subdue him.
EDIT: I'm advocating infusing Mire Ward to hopefully give it enough metaphysical "Oomph" to overcome his anti-Status Effect stuff as well as whatever Zeal Empowering himself has done. Effectively, we're trying to supercharge it for a short duration and use that to buy enough time to launch a chain of attacks to disarm him, freeze the weapon so he can't just call it back, and then hopefully subdue him before things get out of hand.
Zeal's in play, I don't think IAT on himself will be very helpful.
But that doesn't mean there's nothing we can do, the general idea I have here is "Bait him to go for the Sword Technique, then pop a maximum Odr Boosted Mire Ward to effectively freeze space around us, the Odr Infusion should be enough to contest his Zeal and his other tricks, which buys us time for the next phase.
Which is to disarm him, freeze Sparrowflight in space with an IAT after it's disconnected from him, and then hopefully non-lethally subdue him.
EDIT: I'm advocating infusing Mire Ward to hopefully give it enough metaphysical "Oomph" to overcome his anti-Status Effect stuff. Effectively, we're trying to supercharge it for a short duration and use that to buy enough time to launch a chain of attacks to disarm him, freeze the weapon so he can't just call it back, and then hopefully subdue him in turn.
Planning to tank a Finisher seems like an exceptionally poor idea.I think we should pour most of our dice into two big hits, which should be enough to take him down nonlethally.
I don't think the answer to something called a 'Puzzle' is going to come in the form of "Just keep hitting him really hard"
Furthermore, keep in mind, he's not using a Finale, that would definitely be telegraphed. He is going to use something like Sparkbomb or a similar "High cost, high impact" ability however.
Gabriel is pulling out all the stops. He's going for the kill and staining his soul in the process. He's devoting the minimum to his defense, while his offense is ballooning to greater heights. He's got a number of attacks he could use as finishers, but he seems to have settled on two: some kind of sword move and some kind of large-scale attack.
One option: Overwhelming IAT, then disarm him (by removing his sword hand, if necessary. I'm certain hands can be re-attached by shapecrafters. I'm not sure that what Gabriel is doing with his Zeal won't stain him permanently, so max evasion and stalling -> longer battle -> more self harm to Gabriel)
One option: Overwhelming IAT, then disarm him (by removing his sword hand, if necessary. I'm certain hands can be re-attached by shapecrafters. I'm not sure that what Gabriel is doing with his Zeal won't stain him permanently, so max evasion and stalling -> longer battle -> more self harm to Gabriel)
Furthermore, keep in mind, he's not using a Finale, that would definitely be telegraphed. He is going to use something like Sparkbomb or a similar "High cost, high impact" ability however.
Gabriel is currently extremely angry. Not at you, at someone else and himself. Mostly himself. He's frustrated with himself, while the hatred is directed at this other person. It's not very clear.
I wonder if Satan is out and out the The Enemy equivalent for Christian Cultivation. Where Norse Cultivation traps/pitfalls are 'you didn't know this and died/went insane', Christian Cultivation pitfalls are a strictly regimented 'The 7 Sins will fuck this hell out of you'.
His hatred. Steinarr seems like the obvious other person, but it could also be, say, Abjorn.
Also it seems like the plan worked pretty well, and most of its planning assumptions were validated?
(1) His attacks were indeed capable of slowly chewing through our Atgeir Bodyguard/Sword Guard without beating their rolls as I'd suspected, so it's worth having two.
(2) He either had a persistent defence or just enough basic defences prepped that he could seemingly intercept an endless number of low-dice attacks. (They still did wear him down in a sense... they wore down his patience.)
(3) Contested Movement performed exactly how we hoped.
If he wasn't going mad with berserk fury right now, this would be a perfect result!
