- Location
- St. Petersburg
Looks good, but the text exceeds table borders. Here's how it looks on my end.
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Puella Magi Imperatrix Mundi, or: Wherein Half Of Japan Tries To Kill You
- Location
- A friendly desert community
The art is gorgeous (although gah it will mess with my mental image of the characters now) and I wanted to say the table looked fine on my phone earlier.
- Location
- Here
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Absolutely! I can't promise I'll threadmark it like Redshirt Army's omake (that was mainly because his... fit the tone and style of the actual story, if that makes sense?) but I will at least link to it from the information post once it's revised.
Ch. 3: Light the Path Whenever It's Dark (35)
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Evening - Monday, January 17th, 2011
Minami! you say telepathically, getting her attention. Activate stealth mode, be careful of the crossfire, and help however you can.
R-right, she replies, and then--
--you focus on your opponent, making a mental note not to accidentally hit the completely uninteresting innocent bystander who happens to be standing on the roof for entirely reasonable and uninteresting reasons you're not aware of. Your magic sense shows Maiko approaching quickly from behind, staying out of sight.
Yui's Corruption: 2,030 / 10,000
Minami's Corruption: 250 / 2,800
Maiko's Corruption: 120 / 3,000
Minami's Corruption: 250 / 2,800
Maiko's Corruption: 120 / 3,000
Maiko's MP: 26 / 32
Your opponent begins pelting you with small projectiles which do little more than sting slightly, while the perfectly ordinary bystander runs for cover.
The other magical girl seems to be focused on building the two large columns, which you have a strong suspicion she intends to use for some sort of attack you'd rather not be on the wrong end of. Her offensive power is high enough as it is, anything she's putting this much effort into setting up is probably some sort of ridiculous finishing move and while you're slightly disappointed about not getting to see how awesome it is, the fact that it would be aimed at you puts a bit of a damper on even your enthusiasm.
In any case, she hasn't noticed yet that the small projectiles aren't working very well, so you take the opportunity to concentrate on zig-zagging a beam between the two columns. ...which explode violently, as tends to happen to things you shoot. Your opponent swears and makes an attempt to reconstruct the columns, which you also promptly shoot down. Literally and figuratively.
Look, why are you attacking? you ask her telepathically. Can we just, I dunno, relax a bit and talk this out?
She doesn't respond, continuing her attack. She abandons the efforts to create the large columns and instead begins forming loose strands of debris which she lashes toward you like whips. Her aim is off, though, and you dodge between th--
A faint glow is the only warning you get before electricity arcs from her hands, jumping down the two strands and through you to complete the circuit. You spasm painfully as your muscles seize up, but you're still holding your wand and quickly release a shockwave from it. The blast is weak, but enough to disrupt the path of the electricity and give you a chance to get out from between the tips of the electrified strands.
You fire off a few beams and destroy as many pieces of the metal strands as possible, which prompts your enemy to abandon that tactic as well. She pulls the individual fragments back into the whirling cloud around her, which begins to shift and coalesce into another swarm of projectiles.
...a ripple of magic accompanies the sudden appearance of a glowing blue orb resembling a targeting reticle. The orb tracks one of the half-formed projectiles, chimes faintly as it locks on, and then disappears as the target is blasted to pieces in a burst of magic.
The targeting orb reappears just in front of the enemy's face. She receives the message clearly.
That's you, right, Minami? you send telepathically to the friend you just remembered has actually been here the whole time because ugh that stealth thing is going to give you a headache. With your magic sense, you can see her hiding on another rooftop, away from the fight. 'cuz there's no way you could have a clear shot or line of sight from there.
I am a clear line of sight! she says. ...uh, that sounded cooler in my head, though.
The enemy magical girl finally seems to have stopped attacking and stands warily, watching the targeting orb. The storm of metal circling her slows down and draws inward, the projectiles breaking apart into loose shrapnel.
Her name is Chizuka Kumoto and she is, or at least very recently was, part of a mid-sized group in central Nerima, Maiko says telepathically to you and Minami. Her magic is the metal control and electricity generation you've already seen, but my grimoire describes her as skilled at using her magic in creative ways. My grimoire also implies that she may be more loyal to her teammates in Nerima Ward than they deserve. Maiko pauses. Be careful, this is an inhabited area and she could cause significant collateral damage. There would have likely been multiple civilian fatalities if she'd fired that railgun she was making.
Yui's Corruption: 2,150 / 10,000
Minami's Corruption: 275 / 2,800
Maiko's Corruption: 130 / 3,000
Minami's Corruption: 275 / 2,800
Maiko's Corruption: 130 / 3,000
Maiko's MP: 26 / 32
"Are you ready to talk?" you say out loud. "Really, we don't have to fight. If you're willing to stand down, so am I."
"What's to talk about?" she says. "We need this territory. Unless you're happy to just sit back and let us take it?"
"If you--" you begin, only for a good chunk of the metal swarm to hurtle at you, condensing into projectiles mid-flight, while Chizuka herself is yanked up and to the side at similar speed by chunks of metal she'd quietly wrapped around her body. The targeting orb jerks around as Minami tries to aim at Chizuka, but the rapid movements are too fast for Minami to react to and too erratic for her to anticipate.
The metal projectiles begin to converge on you and you use a shockwave to knock them away, but the reprieve is short-lived as Chizuka quickly regains control and launches them at you again. You're pretty sure you could hit her with a beam, but with how rapidly she's moving it'd be hard to control where you hit her and with the constant assault from her projectiles distracting you it's hard to come up with a better plan.
...arrgh! Why are magical girls so frustrating? Well, you mostly do know why, but still.
I don't suppose you could stop attacking long enough for me to think of how to take you down without causing horrible injuries? you somewhat peevishly ask Chizuka over telepathy, as you continue to avoid her projectiles with a mixture of shockwaves and air jumps. I think we'd both appreciate it in the end.
She doesn't respond, because of course she doesn't.
It would be really nice, you think, if you had a way to shoot people without exploding holes through them. You have a clear impression from your magic sense that the very idea of 'destruction' is inherent to the beams, somehow, but on the other hand you don't really see how that relates to your wish, even with Maiko's very broad interpretation of what you might be capable of.
Honestly, don't anime magical girls usually have some special attack that lets them, like, blast the evil out of someone? Not that you think your opponent is possessed by evil spirits or anything but, really, an attack that's not ridiculously lethal by nature doesn't seem like too much to ask!
...and something finally clicks in the back of your head, as you twist around and jump in midair to avoid Chizuka's projectiles. You never did quite figure out how you made those jumps work, but somehow you know you can channel the same basic idea through your wand as an attack. The tip of your wand contracts into a tight flower bud shape as you act on instinct. Push magic in, aim at Chizuka as she dodges Minami's targeting orb, and... fire!
A pulse of energy like a directed shockwave is released from the wand, but the color is muted--a dark, dusty pink in the center, brightening toward the edges. As the pulse of magic hits the metal surrounding Chizuka, each piece jerks to a stop as if hitting a wall and is held in place until the wave of magic passes. Chizuka herself slams to an abrupt stop with a pained cry and is dragged along with the pulse for several meters, past the edge of the roof, before it slides past and lets her fall. She catches herself quickly, rising back up just above the edge of the roof. She fixes you with a glare, then raises her hands slightly--
The metal storm seems to implode, layering around her like a suit of armor until you can't even see Chizuka herself, nasty-looking metal claws on her hands and a small but dense cloud of shrapnel floating just behind her. She crouches forward and seems to leap at you from midair, arms outstretched.
For an instant you're not sure what the purpose of that was, since the 'armor' won't offer any protection the whirlwind didn't and the 'jumping' movement was completely unnecessary... but then you notice with your magic sense exactly where Chizuka's soul gem is, and realize that the 'armor' is hollow now, a shell game distraction as she drops to the ground out of sight.
You use a regular beam to destroy the largest chunks of the 'armor', letting the explosions scatter the rest. Chizuka herself seems to be fleeing, and you notice her picking up speed when she realizes you didn't fall for the decoy.
You telepathically sigh at your friends. Loudly. You're pretty sure they understand the sentiment.
I can still see her, Minami says. Orders, commander?
Yui's Corruption: 2,420 / 10,000
Minami's Corruption: 275 / 2,800
Maiko's Corruption: 130 / 3,000
Minami's Corruption: 275 / 2,800
Maiko's Corruption: 130 / 3,000
Maiko's MP: 26 / 32
[x] Just let her go. You didn't want to fight, she stopped fighting, everyone should be happy now, right?
- [x] Continue as originally planned and go talk to calligraphy girl about her... whatever her magic is.
- [x] (write-in?)
[x] Deal with Chizuka. You weren't done talking to her, it's rude to run off mid-conversation!
- [x] Just brainmail her, don't bother chasing. Maybe she'll actually talk to you now that she's given up on fighting?
- [x] Follow her. You need to get this sorted out.
- [x] Say that you have questions and that if she would just stop attacking you'll be happy to let her go on her way afterwards.
-- [x] Ask her what she's doing in Nagamioka and who the 'we' she mentioned is.
-- [x] Ask why she was so determined to fight and why she ambushed you.
-- [x] Warn her not to start any more fights in your city.
-- [x] (write-in?)
- [x] Demand she surrender; you won't hurt her, but she's exhausted your patience and you don't trust her not to start more fights.
-- [x] Stop her by force if necessary.
- [x] (write-in?)
[x] Leave Minami to monitor Chizuka while you talk to calligraphy girl.
- [x] Keep watch only as long as Chizuka stays in Nagamioka.
- [x] Keep watch as long as Minami can while staying in Nagamioka herself.
- [x] (write-in?)
[x] (write-in?)
Yep. It was a railgun, all right. I would have been very disappointed in you guys if nobody guessed that (especially after I described her costume color scheme as including "electric blue") since, well, by ratio of SV-ish-ness to mechanical complexity railguns must be near the top of the list. Probably second only to 'Project Orion'-style rocket engines.
Some parts of the vote didn't really work out, because you told Minami to act independently and Chizuka didn't give you many chances to do more than react and be annoyed. On the bright side, Yui learned a new trick!
Oh, and if you're wondering what the grimoire said about Chizuka, it went something like "Is good at: Being loyal, trusting her friends. / Is bad at: Picking friends who are trustworthy." Ouch.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
So after a ton of hard work of being cute/adorable and doing Yuiish things, we should recruit her into Yui's harem and send her "friends" running to the hills
Guile
Having a really great time right now
[X] Follow her. Pace her, in fact. Minami should tag along in case you get double ambushed by more Nerima girls or something.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
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Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Eh, the powers aren't actually all that similar beyond the one obvious bit of common ground. Chizuka's main ability is controlling metal with a side order of "human battery" and a limited ability to influence how current flows in metal she's currently controlling. She can't, like, throw lighting bolts or generate magnetic fields or anything like that beyond what could be accomplished by hooking appropriately shaped bits of metal up to a high-voltage power source.
That'd be a lot of running, then. The Kanto plain is pretty flat, no hills around here.
notanautomaton
I've got 99 quests, I've finished one
[X] Follow her. Pace her, in fact. Minami should tag along in case you get double ambushed by more Nerima girls or something.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
Khona Moshr
Pink Flamingo Cabal Healer(they/them)
- Location
- Alabama
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That'd be a lot of running, then. The Kanto plain is pretty flat, no hills around here.
Well it will be great practice at running away from an angry magic girl for them, even if Yui is scary as a wet kitten.
Also in your data update Yui some how lost 7 cm
[X] Follow her. Pace her, in fact. Minami should tag along in case you get double ambushed by more Nerima girls or something.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
PhDEevee
Mathematician and Questgiver
- Location
- Sydney
'Untrustworthy friends', huh? Note that Chizuka says 'we need the territory', but her friends are nowhere to be found... I think she was sent in as a kind of expendable scout, which is a pretty nasty level of awful.
So... I guess Yui can either catch her now or follow her back to her friends and deal with them? Or, alternatively, let Minami follow and spy on them. Entering Nerima Ward has numerous problematic implications, even if Yui was attacked by someone from there.
...Also, Nerima has all of those 'martial artists'. *shudder*
So... I guess Yui can either catch her now or follow her back to her friends and deal with them? Or, alternatively, let Minami follow and spy on them. Entering Nerima Ward has numerous problematic implications, even if Yui was attacked by someone from there.
...Also, Nerima has all of those 'martial artists'. *shudder*
- Location
- Here
To be fair, she can pretty well take care of herself.
??
Also, halp, where's Nerima? I've lost track of the map.
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Yeah, that got retcon'd and is one of the many things in the current post which are out of date. 154cm is pretty close to average for Japanese girls her age; given that Yui is supposed to be tiny, I changed that to 147cm.
No Ranma references, sorry.
I mean, the series ended before Yui was born, it's a little dated for these kids.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
[X] Follow her. Pace her, in fact. Minami should tag along in case you get double ambushed by more Nerima girls or something.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
-[X] if you were willing to swear allegiance to Yui as your adorable daimyo and obey some pretty common sense/basic decency rules (like 'not killing people' and 'dont wreck buildings people work really hard on them') then we could talk. But if you're going to continue being a butt then you can just get the heck out of my city.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
Pretty efficient - that burst of stealth and the shot cost her less than 1% of her total mana. Probably way better against Meguca than against witches, though.
Hmmm. Namedrop her, tell her that if her friends really needed the territory they'd have come themselves instead of sending a mook, and ask her if she wants to defect to the group that doesn't send people on suicide missions and doesn't like attacks that kill bystanders?
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Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Let's try for an offer that at least sounds appealing to her, please?
[X] Follow her. Pace her, in fact. Minami should tag along in case you get double ambushed by more Nerima girls or something.
-[X] Say that you aren't inherently opposed to her and her friends occupying the territory, with a few conditions of course. Ask if you can meet with them to discuss things.
We aren't going to get the girl who's incredibly loyal to her friends to defect just by being adorable at her. We can at least meet her friends to see if they are willing to follow our rules before deciding on their status. Maiko's grimoire doesn't paint a good picture, but it isn't complete, and just because they aren't good friends doesn't mean they are awful people.
[X] Follow her. Pace her, in fact. Minami should tag along in case you get double ambushed by more Nerima girls or something.
-[X] Say that you aren't inherently opposed to her and her friends occupying the territory, with a few conditions of course. Ask if you can meet with them to discuss things.
We aren't going to get the girl who's incredibly loyal to her friends to defect just by being adorable at her. We can at least meet her friends to see if they are willing to follow our rules before deciding on their status. Maiko's grimoire doesn't paint a good picture, but it isn't complete, and just because they aren't good friends doesn't mean they are awful people.
- Location
- Here
OK, I've found Nerima! It's the Tokyo ward right across the border with Nagamioka.
Chizuka is loyal and trusting to her friends. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do psychological warfare on her.
Important question: can we take the Nerima group?
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
Nerima ward is the far northwest corner of Tokyo. To the north it borders the far southwest corner of Nagamioka, and to its east is Itabashi ward.
It's also a real place, unlike Nagamioka. Though, the southwest-most ward of Nagamioka also roughly corresponds to a real place.
The shooting has a negligible cost. Minami's always-on magic has a tiny ongoing cost that roughly doubles her daily baseline, and the stealth has a much higher ongoing cost which was responsible for the vast majority of the gain there.
You don't currently know anything about them other than the oblique references in the profile of Chizuka Maiko looked up. It would take Maiko a significant amount of time and magic to look up the rest of the group from only that starting point.
Balduran
Smuggest Plague-Bearer
- Location
- a quiet, rainy place
I agree with where you're going with this, but given that loyalty is her strong suit, I don't think we've laid nearly enough groundwork to recruit her yet. Honestly, the best chance we have of getting Chizuka (if that's our goal) is probably taking in her team wholesale (which seems like a poor choice, from what we know), or picking her up at some point when her team is dead.
Vebyast
Nascent Transhuman
We probably want to ask ourselves what our goal is in the first place.
- Get her, and her group, to GTFO and not come back?
- Acquire Chizuka for our group?
- Acquire the entire Nerima group as allies or subordinates?
- Destroy the Nerima group?
PhDEevee
Mathematician and Questgiver
- Location
- Sydney
She immediately got into a fight she couldn't win, though. I mean, if Yui had been a perfectly ordinary magical girl and had been taken out, she still had two teammates there who were perfectly capable of taking her on. She may be a good fighter but that doesn't help if you're going into a territory filled with hostile magical girls...
Maybe? Maiko's personality profile indicated high loyalty to friends, so she probably won't believe Yui until faced with the truth of it (see: Genial Precis' reply). It might be advisable to warn her, though; if things turn out badly for her she'll remember the girl who tried to help her.
Very important. Also important - are they actually hostile, or was this just a really dumb move? I'm kind of leaning towards sending Minami to check things out, simply because we've got no real idea of what's going on. With someone on the border close-by, preferably, so they can bail her out just in case. I don't think the average meguca will be able to see through Minami's stealth, but it doesn't hurt to be cautious. I'm also kind of worried that if Yui actually steps into Nerima, these girls will find some way to spin her as the aggressor.
Echo
Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before
- Location
- "echolocation" dur hur hur
You forgot:
- Acquire Nerima
Hell, at the start of the chapter Asami suggested invading Itabashi and dealing with Kaede's group by basically saying "we kicked out the other guys, problem solved, now go back home". Which... might have worked. Maybe. (Probably not.)
Much like Yui, Chizuka has more talent and raw power than experience (or common sense). This is the first time that opening strike hasn't basically worked, or at least given her a major advantage to start with.
Note that if Minami hangs out in Asaka ward, her spysat range can cover the entirety of Nerima ward.
Only meguca with a specific focus on blocking mental influences, seeing past deceptions, &c. have even a chance of seeing through her stealth. It's pretty potent. It's also too expensive for her to run constantly.
Nervos Belli
Don't think this means you've won!
- Location
- Murica
Given how Chizuka said they NEED this territory, I suspect they've been driven out of their current territory and are on the run at the moment, scouting for new places to take up residence. If that's the case we can probably strongarm them into accepting our rules, in exchange for them being another sub team like Rio's group. So long as they stick to the rules and support each other in our territory, I'm inclined to at least make the offer. At any rate, we should probably try to establish a dialogue now.
- Location
- Canada
IMO we need to say, "Hey, you can stay here!" before we go into detail, just to get them to pause.
[x] Follow them from a reasonable distance—close enough to track and message them, but far enough away that they hopefully won't get uncomfortable.
-[x] Message them.
--[x] Hey! You can stay here—this city can support a ton of magical girls!
--[x] I just want to talk!
We don't necessarily want them here, but we also don't want to repel raids from their group indefinitely, so.
[x] Follow them from a reasonable distance—close enough to track and message them, but far enough away that they hopefully won't get uncomfortable.
-[x] Message them.
--[x] Hey! You can stay here—this city can support a ton of magical girls!
--[x] I just want to talk!
We don't necessarily want them here, but we also don't want to repel raids from their group indefinitely, so.