- Pronouns
- He/Him
Which of course, implies someone tortured it to turn it into the hunting dog. Now, just who could that be?
Punching through the Masquerade (Modern Magical Cultivation Quest)
- Thread starter Useless Writer
- Start date
[X] Hear it out: You only recognize the Latin in the babbled tongues the Spirit speaks. But it seems to be speaking coherently. See if you can reason with it. (Opens Dialogue with the Blizzard spirit)
Let's see what we can get from this.
Let's see what we can get from this.
- Location
- Goose Land
[X] Hear it out: You only recognize the Latin in the babbled tongues the Spirit speaks. But it seems to be speaking coherently. See if you can reason with it. (Opens Dialogue with the Blizzard spirit)
I feel very justified in my earlier call of "If we kick its ass and preserve as many Embers as we can, we can get a really good Pact with it"
Would it be possible to call up Phlecket in the capacity of our Mentor in Ethical Spirit Agreements and see about getting a Contract hashed out?
Because the context of "tortured to the point of maddeningly doing anything to stop the pain" feels like an Ethics Thing, especially when you end up having a life or death fight with said tortured hunting dog.
I feel very justified in my earlier call of "If we kick its ass and preserve as many Embers as we can, we can get a really good Pact with it"
Would it be possible to call up Phlecket in the capacity of our Mentor in Ethical Spirit Agreements and see about getting a Contract hashed out?
Because the context of "tortured to the point of maddeningly doing anything to stop the pain" feels like an Ethics Thing, especially when you end up having a life or death fight with said tortured hunting dog.
Useless Writer
He who should not access the interwebs...
- Location
- Somewhere between Wolf 359 and Courscant
Interesting question, I'll have to consider that. Technically his remit only covers instructing you in a set number of spells, but the speed and diligence you're showing in your education means that he would be open to overseeing things at least.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
[X] Hear it out: You only recognize the Latin in the babbled tongues the Spirit speaks. But it seems to be speaking coherently. See if you can reason with it. (Opens Dialogue with the Blizzard spirit)
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Get back to us on the topic, I think he'd generally be inclined to do a bit of pro-bono work for a good student, especially if it means flipping an Enemy Asset, but that's up to you.
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Hear it out: You only recognize the Latin in the babbled tongues the Spirit speaks. But it seems to be speaking coherently. See if you can reason with it. (Opens Dialogue with the Blizzard spirit)
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Daemon Catte also more than earned her pay. Six Windfall for 120 damage? I will fucking take that any day even if she does nothing else for us.
For a 3 turn charged backstab it better be impressive but yes it was a heck of a hit.
I'm honestly looking forward to the write up of "you want to threaten me? Fine. Minions, break his kneecaps."
He didn't even get more than one hit in.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
"I beat an ancient blizzard spirit with the power of friendship and the union legbreakers I found."
- Location
- Goose Land
And even if it isn't pro-bono, offering to let us go into a temporary Favor Debt with the understanding/contract that we will pay back that Debt as much as we are able next turn, could be an interesting educational opportunity on Spirit Ediquette Regarding Debts!
Namely, don't, and if do anyway, payback ASAP, but the angle is there if he wants to be flexible! (Which would be another example in practice, make sure any Pacts you make are well sated/treated even outside of contractual bounds, because they might be willing to give you some weelay in a pinch!)
You know, in this context it actually makes a lot of sense why the Nuclear Option was put onto the table, and just why it was presented as an option.
Musing on things, the implication I'm getting is that this Old Cultivator Spirit was pursuing an Ascension Path where he transcends his Mortal Form by becoming One With Winter or something like that, compared to us who are Forging Ourselves Anew.
What happened is that, well, he failed at a concerning point of his Process, just like how if we got our Spine Wrong we could have straight up died, only instead of losing his Life, he lost his Mind somehow. Maybe it was some sort of Hunger, maybe he accidentally cut himself off from his mortal vessel before he finished properly installing the "sustainable and sane growth method" update, or maybe he was actually completely successful in his Ascension, and then get got ganked and tortured unto madness.
What I'm saying is, assuming something like a 7 Part Transformation Process like our Bodily Forging, his high health could have come from completing all or most of his Process, especially if we assume an Air/Water/Winter Ascension gives less health than a Fire/Earth/Bronze Ascension, and 120 divides by 15 into 8 oh so easily (meaning if we assume each of the 7 Parts gave 15 Health, it really wouldn't be that farfetched for the remaining 15 to be scrounged up elsewhere, especially if Base HP gets into play).
So in that context, we kicked the ass of someone who was solidly ahead of us in Cultivation, even if the results of that Cultivation turned them into a mad beast, one way or the other.
I am quite curious what this Nuclear Option is that it should be able to throw down with an Ascended or nearly Ascended Cultivator and the issue probably being its Attention rather than whether or not it could kill the Cultivator.
And because my brain keeps jumping to the next topic once I "finish" the previous, I think winning this fight means that after we do some Recovery and Reforge our legs, we should probably be absolutely fine to go poke our Loot Opportunity once we secure proper preparations.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Not even Throw Down, it was straight up "Don't use this unless you've no other choice, and the only reason I'm giving you this is because if it jumps you tomorrow you are dead and owing this guy your life is better than that."
That aside, the Loot off this guy is mostly knowledge and information... But that's what we need most of all right now. Even if it's just another Sigil, it'd be worth the price of admission.
But yeah, after we finish recovering--which, given how we only took one hit and we've got a healing spell, we should be okay for that, I think our next objective will be hitting the place where we can practice our art without massive collateral, and then spending a month or two to prep for our trip to get the Treasure that Typhon pointed us towards.
God, if he has the Water Sigil I will ascend. That's the one that can really let us pop off given how high our natural Aptitude for the Water Element is, and it's the one that Typhon actually wouldn't have been able to offer us. I'm pretty sure Winter is elementally associated with Water, so it's a good bet. Air Sigil would be nice too in that we have the Stoking Flames Trait, though if he's got an Earth/Water Combo Art like there's a Fire/Earth one, that'd be nice too. Or Water/Air which would let us absolutely go to town when we finally get the final Sigil and fully unlock what our base level Magus stuff can do, since we'd have a Secret Art connecting both our Core Element (Fire) with our Highest Aptitude Element (Water), using Air as the medium.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
For the record, I think it's less that the Empousa needs to charge and more that it's a melee threat and he was at range. It took that long for the Empousa to get to him. If someone engaged us in melee, it'd be all over them a lot quicker.
It did need to charge. Charge into melee range
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not directly, but we're leaning into elemental stuff fairly hard.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Hear it out: You only recognize the Latin in the babbled tongues the Spirit speaks. But it seems to be speaking coherently. See if you can reason with it. (Opens Dialogue with the Blizzard spirit)
What sort of terms will we be able to stipulate if this vote wins?
What sort of terms will we be able to stipulate if this vote wins?
If GOD is gonna hunt us down for having access to the Primordial Elements, then you bet your ass we're going to lean into them. We've already got a target on our head, might as well use the magics that even GOD fears.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
Just seems to be how our Cultivation style works, it's about taking Primordial Elements and using them to elevate oneself to divinity. The other options seemed to be "Mind over Matter" Psionic Stuff and "Having so many spirit pacts that you're a Sovereign Power" Shamanism.
- Location
- San Ramon, CA
Helping us in a future combat, perhaps a spell. If he somehow knows one of the elemental Sigils we're missing from the set, that would make this encounter MORE than worth it.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh definitely. Not a complaint at all, I think our magic is great.
Yes, but we could have focused on energy work or demonolatry or a lot of options for our non-cultivation magics. We went all-in on elemental stuff instead. Which, to be clear, I am currently experiencing zero regrets for, but it was a choice.
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Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
I think we've got the ability to dip into other fields, just that advancing beyond Mortal Practitioner requires a Great Secret, which the Fire of Prometheus qualified as for us. It seems to have some kind of trait that permits greater Rebellion against the laws of the world, because of it's very nature of being fire stolen from the gods to give to man--so it shields us from whatever it is that prevents most mortals from getting beyond dabbler levels (The "Disbelief" thing that was mentioned in the OP maybe?)
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CedeTheBees
Probably high right now
- Location
- Somewhere
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I do wonder if the other elements have any similar flavor