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Path of Being Evil (Original Fantasy Quest)

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Interlude: House of Twilight, Part 2
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    • [X] Plan: Fight Offensively
    -[X] Took the innitiave by immediately attacking the Priestess with barrages of Dark Blast. Try to distract her by talking while using Fear Aura. Quickly approach her while using Negative Reinforcement. Grapple her staff away and beat her to unconsciousness using it.

    I can't let her take the lead. You thought after momentarily considering your situation.

    Fighting in the city is dangerous for you considering how fast the back up can arrive in this land. It would be easy for her to play the waiting game until help arrives if you were to gave her the chance. Thus it would be better if you just deny it outright by being very aggresive in this enggagement.

    Mind's made up, you immediately extend your right arm towards the attacking blond Priestess. Swiftly releasing a magic shot made out of a dark attributed mana from your open palm to counter her next offensive.

    You must be faster than you thought, or maybe your enemy is just too slow. Because even before she had released her attack, yours had already reached her. Striking with a pin point accuracy that had even amazed you, the Dark Blast you made had carved out an eye from the unprepared girl. Making her scream in pain while also scattering her blood and gore to the ground behind her. It was just a glancing blow, but it is enough to knock her off of her feet and snuffing out the light that she is making.

    Not wasting an opportunity being given, you began advancing towards her prone defenseless figure. She is moaning in absolute agony while grasping her now injured, and likely missing, left eye. Too busy sobbing in a kneeling position with her back facing you to even notice your approach due to the immense suffering you had just inflicted on her.

    You might have given her pity because of the miserable sight, but that feeling completely went out to drain when you saw her staff glowing in an entrancing white light. Not for an attack this time, as her hand covered eye then began to glow as well. This girl is healing herself!

    Clicking your tongue in annoyance, you hasten up your steps. Quickly launching yourself into a tirade of random mocking and derogatory insults towards the teen in an attempt to distract her even further from your rapidly closing in form. Fortunately it seems to be working on the very first try. Making your brief split of focus to use Negative Reinforcement to be worth it.

    "What's the matter?" You said in your current teeth gnashing voice. "If you rather sleep there instead of facing me then you shouldn't have attacked. Why did you do that anyway? I meant you no harm."

    "No harm? You can't lie to me you monster." She uttered in a gasping breath. A snarl is evident in her tone. "I may not know what your kind is, but I know what people like you do. The Twin's can also see that. So don't tell me you wished me no harm when you had already cost me an eye!"

    She then suddenly turned herself around. Her staff is already shining once again in preparation for another attack, and you can see how her eyes are tiredly blinking in exertion. She is clearly on her last legs, but there's steel on her next words that makes you want to grit your teeth in irritation at her audacity.

    "Selfish people like you only knows how to take, take, and keep on taking! I had already lost everything once before, and I will never let anyone experience that cruelty you would have surely bring!"

    "Then-" You began to say, easily taking her staff away from her quivering hand to raise it far above your head. You saw her eyes widened, clear surprise at your proximity and how your next intentions being just that obvious to her. Too bad there's nothing she can do to stop it.

    "-WHY ARE YOU SO WEAK!?" You yelled. Swinging her staff down hard towards her head that gave off a satisfying "KYAHAK!?" out of the clueless bitch. Rocking her body around and causing blood to flow out of her head.

    "You had no right in saying that when you only knew nothing." You spat at her before narrowing your eyes. The Priestess hand is still moving and it is attemping to lift herself off the ground. Just how stubborn is this girl?

    "At the very least you should have know the time to actually STOP!" You snapped. Bulging her eyes out by cruelly stomping on her stomach and making her lose air for her useless effort.

    "Fa, Father, Frank, lin...." Cried out the Acolyte possibly for one last time. Closing her eyes while softly descending into the darkness known as fainting.

    You gave her a moment or two to come back again, but after half a minute it is clear how the girl is definitely out cold this time. She won't be waking up anytime soon and you let out a sigh of relieve at that.

    Priestess Attacks Vecna with Luciana's Light
    2 (Nat 1 times 2) + 21 = 22 Vs 9 + 8 = 17
    Two Critical Failure for Priestess! She canceled her attack and leave herself open!

    Vecna Attacks Priestess with Dark Blast
    29 + 34 = 63 Vs 16 + 12 - 5 = 23
    Priestess loses! She received 4 wound

    Priestess is at zero health! She uses the Staff of Daylight to desperately restore 2 Health

    Vecna Distract Priestess with insults while approaching her and using Negative Reinforcement
    29 + 7 - 5 (Focusing on a Spell) = 31 Vs 22 + 17 - 10 (Desperate Healing) = 29
    Priestess is distracted!

    Vecna Grappled the Priestess's Staff of Daylight
    12 + 10 = 22 Vs 20 + 10 - 10 = 20
    Vecna Wins! Vecna managed to successfully take the staff

    Vecna angrily Attacks Priestess with a downward swing of the Daylight Staff
    27 + 12 = 37 Vs 8 + 10 = 18
    Vecna Wins! Priestess received 2 wound

    Priestess is back at zero Health! She rolled a saving throw of DC: 20
    Roll: 20
    Success! Priestess received 1 Health

    Vecna Attacks Priestess with a stomp in annoyance
    22 + 12 = 34 Vs 17 + 10 - 5 (Saving Throw) = 22
    Vecna Wins! Priestess received 2 wound

    Priestes is once again at zero health!
    Overkill damage avoided due to a non-lethal strike
    Priestess rolled a saving throw of DC: 30 + 5 = 35
    Roll: 16
    Failure! Priestess is now unconcious

    Vecna Won the Battle againts a Luciana's Acolyte!
    Vecna is untouched and is at full 6 Health
    Less than 10 Spells were used by both sides!
    The Mage Tower will not come to investigate

    While the battle is over, no matter how easy it was, the problem isn't entirely gone. A quick look around is enough to reveal the location of what you are looking for, and thus you kneeled right beside the unconcious priestless to take a hold of it. The damn thing is shining even brighter now with your touch upon it's surface.

    Laying atop of your palm is the emblem which had started this whole mess. It's a purple round gem circled by a ring of silver with an intricate looking carvings. From your knowledge, this item is for the devoters of Leyla, and quite an old one too. Why is this thing just being left behind on a table?

    You direct your gaze to the opening in the church walls. Could there possibly more valuables on there? While you hadn't exactly geared up tonight for a looting spree, you could at least be able to take two or three more items on your person. Four if one of them is small.

    Should you though?

    [ ] Yes, loot the Church!

    [ ] No, you don't want to bother.

    After pocketing Leyla's emblem, you then switch your attention towards the night's trouble maker. Leaning over the Priestess, you delicately grabbed her chin with your fingers. Slowly turning her face left and right to inspect the extent of injury you had caused. Finishing that, you then trail your eyes across her petite figure from the top to bottom. Carefully checking and crossing out an imaginative list inside your mind while doing so.

    You nod to yourself after being done with your innitial assestment of the girl. The damage is quite minimal, she had a fit body, and judging from the first magic she had used you are confident she also had a good mana system.

    Yes, this Priestess would make a fine Undead indeed.

    You tilt your head while retracting your hand. The problem however is again, should you? This girl is, for all intents and purposes, an unknown to you. Who knows what her situation might be and there's no telling who you might have angered by killing her.

    Once again your gaze falls to the Church. There's that Father Franklin figure, and it's easy enough to deduce he is the missing Bishop. That ship most likely had sailed though as you are sure he will not be happy about you smacking her Acolyte's head to the ground with her own staff.

    Does it even really matter? You asked yourself in the privacy of your own head. Shifting your eyes coldly back to the slumbering Priestess laying in front of you. I can't really have her go blabbering about what had happened tonight to anyone couldn't I?

    Simply put, she is dangerous to let alive. You don't know what exactly had she seen from the emblem, but she clearly considers you to be a dangerous enough individual to warrant an immediate action to be given. She definitely will try to make a big deal out of you the moment she recovers. It would be bad for you if news of a Necromancer presence in Mavis were to spread.

    Though you can let her go. You just don't see the reason why. Maybe the uproar might given you a chance at something? Maybe she by some miracle will not tell anybody? Who knows.

    You consider the staff in your hand. Decisions, decisions.

    What you should do about the Priestess?

    [ ] Kill her, take her corpse with you.

    [ ] Kill her, leave her corpse behind.

    [ ] Spare her, and leave her laying there.
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • That went very well for us. No sign of wounds on us and the fact that this affair ended quickly should do wonders towards keeping suspicions against us at a low (perhaps even nonexistent) level.

    That said... should we go for the kill here?
     
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    I'm all for killing her, frankly. What I'm more torn on is whether or not to leave the body behind or not.

    On one hand, it is a potential undead for us.

    On the other, we could frame the situation as a robbery gone wrong if we loot the church and leave the body.
     
    Who knows what sort of tracing magic the temple could get used to find a murderer of their pristess? Leaving the body here starts an investigation immediately with fresh evidence. Taking the body would delay things a few days while they don't even know if she just ran away or something
     
    Wow, that was a surprisingly successful fight.
    Searching for a church is probably not a good idea. We don't know what we might run into there, and we probably shouldn't stay long anyway.
    We are still not sure that the priestess recognized us as a necromancer. Fortunately, this emblem does not seem to be a common thing, and now that we have it, we can try to understand what makes it react. We have to make time for this at the next turn.
    As for the girl's life and death ... Well, that's the question. On the one hand, we remove the witness. On the other hand, her testimony will not look very reliable, given that she survived, and her faith seems very unpopular in this city. The girl can look for us, yes, but without the emblem, it will be difficult, and our laboratory is well protected. In addition, in the event of her death, there is a high chance that the Church will send someone much more competent and experienced to replace her, most likely not even alone. If there is a person in the rank of Adept or even Expert, we have big problems. And the death of the priestess is a much more serious reason to get the city authorities to help in the investigation than her story about a certain * villain *. It will seriously increase the chances for us to be discovered.
    Generally? Considering all perspectives, killing the priestess seems more dangerous than leaving her alive. As counterintuitive as it sounds.
    As for the body? Well, if we kill her and take the body, we might as well leave a note at the scene of the crime, "Necromancer in town."

    [X] No, you don't want to bother.
    [X] Spare her, and leave her laying there.
     
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    Well then, that was an interesting fight, we have some options how to deal with this. If we kill her and leave the corpse and steal the stuff in the Church, it would be very easy to frame it as a robbery gone wrong or for the worst for the victim.

    Sparing her is the risky option as it risks her not telling the populace a necromancer is in the city and not describing what they look like. On the other hand us leaving her alive and not stealing the items in the Church would make it very difficult for her to be believed by the populace, along with that the Bishop would not incensed to search for the murderer of their acolyte as they cannot let that stand by, also the acolyte herself would be seriously confused as she expects to be dead due to prior experiences she has with other necromancer as seen by her dialogue.

    In essence it all depends on whether a dead priestess is likely to be a major cause of alarm in the city then one who was beaten unconscious for a lethal fight she started in the first place which detracts her opponent from being a necromancer immensely especially since no necromantic spells or constructs were used within the vicinity. Making her claims to be likely meet with skepticism along with possibly causing her doubts over it.

    Interestingly enough the interesting factor is the emblem she had as we do not know what she detected in the first place through it, if it is rare or she does not have it later, it would make finding us very difficult especially if is looking for generic factors which can confuse the emblem.

    However there is the admitted factor which alters the calculus immensely, we do not know what her reputation to the general populace of the area is, if she is a trusted individual then it would be a bad idea to kill her as her death along with her disappearance would cause a lot of attention to come our way, if is isolated and generally lacking connections it would be easy to kill and for her disappearance to not matter much except for the Bishop who is another unknown factor. Likely reaction to death can wary from him going a warpath either because she is his literal daughter or valued acolyte or other reactions.

    I do two questions though, how well known are necromancers across the World? What is the general stereotypes and expectations of how necromancer typically behave to the populace or Venca?
     
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    In regards to the Church, or any group in Mavis really, sending people to go after you. Then the highest they could possibly go will be Wilhelm. I am not that cruel to fill your beginning years with Expert level threats and above.

    Anyways, that fight wasn't supposed to be that easy. That double Nat 1 is what did her in. You were supposed to at least receive 1 or 2 wounds in that fight, but you slaughtered her instead.

    Also I wasn't kidding when I say you are going to be a miniboss. 20 is the hard cap I set for people below Expert level. Beside you, there is only 1 person with a 20 in their stats whom you had already met and no. It's not Wilhem.
     
    @Black.Horus Would a Write-In subvote be allowed? I kind of have an idea of something like this:

    [ ] Kill her, leave her corpse behind.
    -[ ] Take a few valuable items that might be on her person — make it look hasty — to stage it as a robbery gone wrong.
     
    Dheer said:
    I do two questions though, how well known are necromancers across the World? What is the general stereotypes and expectations of how necromancer typically behave to the populace or Venca?
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    Black.Horus said:
    I guess it's fine to tell you all here. The reason the Necromancers were considered evil in Altria, (beside how most people doesn't like the thought of their relatives corpses being violated), is because of the stuff they were using to do necromancy.

    To put it simply it made them go crazy. There are some meta physical rules or another that should have prevented the entire Undead process to be impossible, but something happened and now those who defies those rules suffers the consequences of going insane if they don't do something about it. Think of the Soul Rot from Fate series, but with an entire magic system available to it now because of that something.
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    TheLordofAwesome said:
    I mean, not necessarily. A person disappearing doesn't necessarily means people will jump to the conclusion that a necromancer is around. Some might perceive it as a kidnapping.
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    It could be a kidnapping if the Church has no way of determining whether she is alive or dead, but who would go for it? She's not from a noble family, and the slavers won't want to kidnap someone that high-profile. The only ones I can think of as well are demon worshipers, and the Inquisition's response to this is likely to be the same, if not more serious.
     
    TheLordofAwesome said:
    @Black.Horus Would a Write-In subvote be allowed? I kind of have an idea of something like this:

    [ ] Kill her, leave her corpse behind.
    -[ ] Take a few valuable items that might be on her person — make it look hasty — to stage it as a robbery gone wrong.
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    I am on the middle with this one. I like creativity, but for this one I think it would be best if there is no write-in.

    All the valuables on the priest beside the emblem is her staff and her wallet, which is thin. Vecna would still take them whatever the result if that's what worries you. She is not stupid. She knows assaulting a person would need a motive and would prepare the crime scene as fit.

    If you take the body for example Vecna will do her best in getting rid of the blood splatter. If not she will leave them be.

    AltF4152 said:
    Haven't read the chapter yet, had to point out this typo, it is literally in the first sentence, it should be take, not took, wrong tense.
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    Thank you for pointing that out. Fixed.
     
    [X] Yes, loot the Church!
    [X] Kill her, leave her corpse behind.

    Well this will have to do. Young priestess killed while trying to defend the church.

    Though @Black.Horus , could we also do a write in to take one of her personal items so we can frame a local gang for it? To give it appearance of series of robberies opposed to the one isolated crime?
     
    Another thing I'm worried about is that the Church is using the death of the priestess as an opportunity to spread the influence of their religion in the city. It is what I would like to avoid. Even if Twins is not very popular in the city, the death of the priestess of the gods will cause a lot of resonance. And this could force the Tower and Temple of the Six to join in the search for the culprit.

    Vecna was in disguise during the fight, and she twisted her voice with magic. The priestess may not recognize her even if they meet in the middle of the street, so I'm not afraid that she will point at Vecna as the "villain". And yes, she attacked first.
     
    Eternal_0bserver said:
    Another thing I'm worried about is that the Church is using the death of the priestess as an opportunity to spread the influence of their religion in the city. It is what I would like to avoid. Even if Twins is not very popular in the city, the death of the priestess of the gods will cause a lot of resonance. And this could force the Tower and Temple of the Six to join in the search for the culprit.

    Vecna was in disguise during the fight, and she twisted her voice with magic. The priestess may not recognize her even if they meet in the middle of the street, so I'm not afraid that she will point at Vecna as the "villain". And yes, she attacked first.
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    Problem once again being the device, we don't know what it means . Leaving her alive may lead to further trouble if her higher ups believes her and decides to do the investigation, or she herself doing it causing potential annoyance for us.

    On other hand tying a lose end doesn't cause that and we can always mislead the investigation.
     
    I'm still on the fence regarding if we should kill the priestess or not. That said, I feel it is too risky to loot the Church, as we run the risk of having someone else stumble upon us.

    [X] No, you don't want to bother.
    [X] Spare her, and leave her laying there.

    EDIT: Made a decision regarding what to do with the priestess... I pray that I'm making the right choice here...

    That said, no matter what we decide, we need to keep on grinding our Diplomacy and Intrigue stats. Also, we should branch into Illusionism if possible, so that we have an easier time keeping a low profile.
     
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    Star said:
    [X] Yes, loot the Church!
    [X] Kill her, leave her corpse behind.

    Well this will have to do. Young priestess killed while trying to defend the church.

    Though @Black.Horus , could we also do a write in to take one of her personal items so we can frame a local gang for it? To give it appearance of series of robberies opposed to the one isolated crime?
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    No write in allowed for this update.
     
    Star said:
    Problem once again being the device, we don't know what it means . Leaving her alive may lead to further trouble if her higher ups believes her and decides to do the investigation, or she herself doing it causing potential annoyance for us.

    On other hand tying a lose end doesn't cause that and we can always mislead the investigation.
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    I don't think even 10 in intrigue is enough for this. Too many things can go wrong, our commander will definitely find out about it, and she already suspected us once.
    As for the priestess's personal investigation? She is not in Adept rank, so even if she searches our house, she will not find anything. The choice of the dark element was a serious boon to our stealth from magical detection. The city seems to have little faith in the Twins, so unless something serious happens, the Church is unlikely to send significant reinforcements there.
    And I do not think that robbery will be the main version of the investigation - in a world where the presence of gods is very tangible, there will hardly be many idiots who will want to rob the church if they do not intentionally strive to do so. Plus, local organized crime will also likely want the blood of a culprit who can draw that much attention to them.
     
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    [X] No, you don't want to bother.
    [X] Kill her, took her corpse with you.

    We will hardly have another chance to get an usable body in at least months, if not years.

    Also, no robbery, so people may think she just went away.

    However, I think that leaving her alive is a trap option if we also want to invest some actions in necromancy in the next turns, so I'm opposed to that.
     
    darknessworld said:
    However, I think that leaving her alive is a trap option if we also want to invest some actions in necromancy in the next turns, so I'm opposed to that.
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    Do we want to? We still don't have the right equipment, other research needs our attention, like the emblem, we need to improve our intrigue and diplomacy stats, we wanted to try to learn curse magic and we haven't learned all the necromancy skills that don't require a body yet. In addition, other events may require our attention, like the story about drugs. We have no way to preserve the body for a long time (except for the coffin, but the body of our sister lies there).
    Overall, I don't think it is worth the potential for the Church, Tower, Temple, Underground and adventurers to seek us out. It is much better to try to find the body of a person whose disappearance would not raise suspicion and that no one would miss. Moreover, I do not know if we will attract the attention of the Twins if we use necromancy on their priestess. Of course, our situation will not be hopeless, but I would prefer to avoid it.
     
    Eternal_0bserver said:
    Overall, I don't think it is worth the potential for the Church, Tower, Temple, Underground and adventurers to seek us out.
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    Then why are you voting to let her go? All of those with the exception of adventurers are as likely to come as any other option, if not more.

    Also, you know what? There was an order of necromancers that was busted just some time ago. What are the odds that one of them may flee to this city and be captured? What will happen then when the priestess will be found "right" if she insists there are other necromancers around?

    Then we would have probably stunted our developments just for having less breathing room for our actions.

    By the way, if she survives, the church will also discover that the artefact she had with her was stolen, and that's something very specific to lose considering how many necromancer are now wandering around.

    The only way to completely avoid that is if we take her body with us and make her disappear, even if just killing her will still stall things for some time.
     
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