Is this a vote prompt or a two part update with no votes needed?
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Seeing how we walked right into it, and a solution might be a bit tricky, I find it difficult to believe Blender can get out of this one on her own.
So... ideas? Going after Arthur may be preferable, but we don't know which one it is... although at the moment I am not inclined to care. They are keeping at it out of sheer spite, because not even killing Blender here would let them have Ar-Harbor back.
But if we kill Arthur here, would that neutralize the champion?
So... ideas? Going after Arthur may be preferable, but we don't know which one it is... although at the moment I am not inclined to care. They are keeping at it out of sheer spite, because not even killing Blender here would let them have Ar-Harbor back.
But if we kill Arthur here, would that neutralize the champion?
- Location
- France
Hey @Walter, could we destroy the floor? Does it count as an item we could remove some essential characteristic from somehow?
Even making it impossible to stand on (super slippery?) could be useful. We could say something like "Keep kneeling, if you like it so much", knock them all down by messing with the floor, and therefore buy us enough time for our Ultras to get up and mob them.
Even making it impossible to stand on (super slippery?) could be useful. We could say something like "Keep kneeling, if you like it so much", knock them all down by messing with the floor, and therefore buy us enough time for our Ultras to get up and mob them.
- Location
- USA
You are ~80% confident that you can't, or, at least, not without affecting the whole building. Typically floors aren't separate from the building that they are in (although doors and appliances often are). That said, Blender hasn't reached down and touched the floor yet, so she doesn't know for sure.
- Location
- France
I don't know if you read it, but it basically involves slowly walking up and pushing away everyone in our path while doing a villainous monologue. Conveniently, touching each person one by one should let us sense their man attributes with our power. This should hopefully let us avoid being attacked from behind by an empowered human, and it exposes them all to our death touch.
Battle of Ar Harbour 7
- Location
- USA
"So, you're Ar-" I began, taking a step and a half forward, reaching down to one of those kneeling in the Process.
I didn't get any further than that because the speaker flung himself towards me, body blurring with Ultra speed. He crossed the distance between us in an eyeblink, a fist flying towards my face.
I was reaching for a person, and now I transformed that motion into a grab, spent my final free moments dragging an obstacle into his path, hoping desperately to delay the incoming strike.
It didn't work, his feet hammered out a rapid rhythm on the ground as he orbited nimbly to my right, his first punch landed in the hollow of my armpit as I dragged the human into a direction of attack he's already abandoned.
I reeled away from the strike, agony racing through me. Having two 'living' attributes meant that I was feeling everything so much more intensely, and that was a huge problem when you were being beaten to death.
I didn't get far, a bare few inches at most, before another hook slammed into my upper side, Ultra Strength burrowing it inches into my torso. I felt bile or blood rising in my mouth, my hands clenched convulsively.
This was how Smasher had fallen. Well, not the end, obviously, but how things had gotten that bad. An opponent with superior Ultra Speed and the strength necessary to hurt you was a nightmare.
I grabbed at his hand as it withdrew from the second punch, trying desperately to get a moment of skin to skin contact, but I missed it by a foot or more, moving in slow motion next to him. He ducked around back to the other side, rammed his fist, muffled by a shirt or gloves or something, into the wound I'd taken earlier.
I collapsed entirely, knees buckling and eyes rolling in my head, the pain utterly beyond my ability to cope with it. The human I'd grabbed fell with me, two bodies sliding towards the ground, limp and unresisting.
I didn't make it to the ground unscathed, of course, as my opponent somehow pulled off some kind of hook kick to the side of my head. But even with my doubled senses at this point it was just pain overkill, I barely registered my neck wrenching to the side, my ear slamming down into my shoulder as I hit the ground.
I'd landed on my back, so I could see his heel rising up above me, the stomp incoming, a straight shot to my forehead that would put an end to all the pain.
The Ultras were almost here, but they could never stop this. He'd already begun the descent, choosing to kill me rather than jump away from their rush. I might have done the same in his place.
The heel descended, boot filling my view. The pain numbed me, tyrannized and cored me apart, leaving me helpless to move or twitch as death approached.
It was hardly the first time, after all.
A voice from the past came back to me, hard and thuggish, Subtracter in the full confidence of her idiot youth.
"Anybody know who threw that?"
Another voice, Blisser's this time.
"You're so *bad*!"
And finally Hers, curiously slower than all the rest.
"Heeeeeyy Aaaasssssshhhooo….!"
I regained my agency with the boot a centimeter from my face, no time to do anything physical. I called, at the last, upon my gift.
The person I'd grabbed, at the first, still hadn't got my hand off of her face. She was 'living', and then she wasn't.
The boot arrived, my skull cracked, buckled in. Tripled pain devoured the world as my head dug into the ground.
But I Did Not Die. I was living, living, living.
I'd never worn three of the same attribute before, rarely dared to pull two in to my being. Had I lost something? Was I no longer 'mobile', or 'smart'? Would I know what I'd lost?
The enemy champion had jumped back after the deathblow, but the hands that were reaching for him wilted into subservience, my Ultras falling to their knees before him, taking the Posture.
Not before him, before Her.
Prevailer was here, all of a sudden, standing right behind my attacker. Her voice had been no flashback.
The enemy turned around instantly, blur quick, his side step placing him right between us and obscuring my view of Her.
Things fuzzed for me then, a spike of agony breaking past the numbness. I gasped aloud and arched my back, to the degree that I was capable of movement. My field of vision tilted as I did so, neck driving my head across the ground and leaving me staring off at the side wall while my attacker and my boss did their business.
I'd read somewhere that there were no nerves in the brain, but that turned out to be bullshit, because I was in a world of pain. Or maybe it was just all the other damage finally having its turn to be heard, the broken ribs and ruptured organs giving their threefold signals with all they were worth.
I lay there, frantically calling on my healing gift for all that I was worth, for a timeless infinity. It is a total cop out to say that something is indescribable, but that's what I'm hiding behind. Ok, like, until you've been savagely beaten beyond the point where a body can sustain life, but hung onto it anyway by stealing other people's life force through a gift, twice, you can't know my pain.
It was bad, is what I'm getting at.
I think I got enough wind back to start screaming at some point, which would have been the end of me, except someone clamped a hand over my mouth the moment I started, leaving me making forceful and energetic vibrating/humming noises instead of the full throated screams I was trying for.
All that time ensuring my Posse and Warband were loyal was paying off in spades.
Even more helpfully than muzzling me, or, at least, equally helpfully, that same person began to pick the bone bits out of the mess of gore that was my forehead, pulling things up and out to where they ought to be, or at least a sort of simulacrum of that.
The question of who the fuck would possibly put their hands on their boss with the death touch in this state was the start of my return to being a thinking, acting creature. I wasn't even surprised when I got my stuff working again and saw Owner, stooped above me, with a knee across my throat and her hands clamped over my mouth.
I tried to move my arm, and shockingly enough it did the thing I wanted it to, which was to thrash weakly against her leg.
She ignored it, continuing to grind my jaw closed with both hands, not even really looking down at me, her gaze locked on someone else, presumably Her.
I was about to push more forcefully, then tried something a bit more complicated, tapping my arm rapidly against her leg in the Ultra Fight 'tap out' gesture.
She looked down at me then, and I saw face ravaged by grief, now breaking into the smallest hint of relief. We locked eyes, and hers widened slightly.
I'd known Owner for a long time, so if anyone was going to do the 'wordless communication' thing, it should have been us, but actually all I got out of that was 'my eyes are slightly wider'.
I gave a slight nod, because, you know, nonverbal communication is bullshit and I was in a lot of pain. She let up on the muzzle hold that she'd been sustaining for however long I'd been laid out, hands relaxing just the slightest bit.
I managed, through what I'd like to describe as a colossal feat of willpower, but was more likely just a general inability to do things at this time, to not scream as soon as it was possible.
I'm not saying that I was choosing to scream and it was not something I could pull off, to the extent that I was the driver of my brain ship I was all about being silent in case She was still around, but that extent wasn't nearly as large as I would like, and the involuntary caucus was worryingly influential.
I tucked my chin, slightly, bringing my gaze back to where things had been going on last time I was able to watch. Things hadn't got too much farther, which meant that either I hadn't been brain locked for a terribly long time, or King Arthur was really good at verbal tap dancing, and had kept herself alive in front of Her for however long it had been. Or both.
She'd been unmasked, at least. King Arthur was a slight woman of middle years, she was currently standing in front of Prevailer, saying some stuff that I was a bit too far away to hear. Her champion was inconspicuously backing away towards one of the windows, and the other locals were down in the Posture, along with my guys.
I tried to rise to my feet, and was almost unable to recognize my situation when I actually did. Like, I was rising, my point of view was going up, how had that happened?
Owner, peerless saint that she was when she wasn't kneeling on my goddamn neck, had recognized my straining and lent a shoulder to me, hoisting me up and supporting me. I decided to tell her not to, to let her know that She took a dim view of people aiding one another.
"Bluhhh…" I said.
Work in progress, clearly. I focused on my healing gift again, reasoning that if I wanted it to work faster it might.
Across from us, people were saying words.
"Why did you rebuild all this stuff?" asked Prevailer.
"We are bringing America back." retorted King Arthur. "We are bringing civilization back!"
"Oh," She said, sounding a little disappointed, "You are just dumb. I was hoping that there was a cool reason."
"You can't stop all of us," said Arthur. "One day someone will put an end to your tyranny."
She didn't say anything to that, not directly, just kind of looking around a bit.
I flinched away from what I assumed would be some kind of extravagant vivisection, but nothing happened for a long beat.
"Look, Imbuer," said Prevailer, after thinking a bit. "You did me a solid by fixing this place up. I've wanted to come here for a while, kind of regretted that Karen knocked it all down, so, like, what do you want?"
"My name is King Arthur!" snapped my adversary, who was apparently out of her fucking mind, "And I want nothing from you!"
This time I knew there wouldn't be a beheading or whatever. She was playing with Her food now, a bully chasing the high.
"You know Arthur was a dude's name, right?" She asked. "Well, whatever. I can tell what you want easy enough. You kept fighting after you'd already lost, tried your best to kill my Warlord over there."
She waved a hand lazily at me, then did a double take when She actually saw me.
"Cover that shit up!" She snarled. "Gross!"
Owner, in a moment of dubious sainthood, instantly pulled my shirt up from my waist over my head, leaving my arms kind of hanging up in the air and an exceptionally irksome pressure on the still healing broken part of the skull in the front.
On the other hand, it was to prevent Her from ending me, so I couldn't be all that mad.
"Yes," admitted King Arthur, "I strove to destroy your fearsome champion."
Prevailer took a long look at her 'fearsome champion', who was presently doing the what I'm hoping was an awesome power pose of 'shirt over the top of my head, you don't even know where I'm looking!'.
"It's Your," corrected Prevailer. "And that's a fair trade."
"What?" spluttered King Arthur.
Hidden behind my shirt, I winced. Here it came.
"Kill yourself," said the ruler of the Regime, "And I'll kill Blender."
"You wouldn't!" she snarled.
"Sure I will," said Prevailer. "What do I care which one of you idiots does which job?"
Another long beat. I couldn't exactly bring myself to feel sympathy for King Arthur, not after what she'd done to my friends, and the danger she'd placed her followers in with her conduct during this battle, but I was rooting for her right now.
"You'll really kill her?" she asked, voice not so strident now.
Even though she was my enemy, I was hoping that she could hold onto her dignity right now. But I probably would have broken in her place. Everyone would.
"It's 'You'll'", She said.
"You will really kill her, if I kill myself?" asked Arthur, and God help me, she capitalized the pronoun.
"Sure," She said.
"Goodbye you fucker!" snarled Arthur, and made some kind of quick motion.
With my view obstructed by the shirt I couldn't really see well what was happening, but I heard the gunshot clearly enough, saw her vague form topple down to the ground.
Prevailer walked over.
"Get your people back to the Lair," She said. "Subtracter will tell you the next place in a few weeks. Leave a Boss behind in this dump to take over."
I stood helpless, head muffled in a shirt, but Owner kind of flexed me in a manner that She hopefully took as a nod.
"Oh," She said, "Make sure you keep the people out of the fixed up buildings for a few hours. I'd like to be alone."
I didn't think that would be all that hard.
**************************************************
That completes the first arc of Regime Quest! Thank you all so much for voting and reading along. Very lucky to survive this last update, a clutch role saw you through!
Some choices for you to make in the aftermath of the battle. Keep in mind as you form a plan that Blender is essentially going to need 2 days of healing from her own gift to be back right. The first day makes her not an invalid, the second gets her back in fighting shape. She can't do a lot during the first day, and can't really fight until after the second, but her followers can still get up to things.
I didn't get any further than that because the speaker flung himself towards me, body blurring with Ultra speed. He crossed the distance between us in an eyeblink, a fist flying towards my face.
I was reaching for a person, and now I transformed that motion into a grab, spent my final free moments dragging an obstacle into his path, hoping desperately to delay the incoming strike.
It didn't work, his feet hammered out a rapid rhythm on the ground as he orbited nimbly to my right, his first punch landed in the hollow of my armpit as I dragged the human into a direction of attack he's already abandoned.
I reeled away from the strike, agony racing through me. Having two 'living' attributes meant that I was feeling everything so much more intensely, and that was a huge problem when you were being beaten to death.
I didn't get far, a bare few inches at most, before another hook slammed into my upper side, Ultra Strength burrowing it inches into my torso. I felt bile or blood rising in my mouth, my hands clenched convulsively.
This was how Smasher had fallen. Well, not the end, obviously, but how things had gotten that bad. An opponent with superior Ultra Speed and the strength necessary to hurt you was a nightmare.
I grabbed at his hand as it withdrew from the second punch, trying desperately to get a moment of skin to skin contact, but I missed it by a foot or more, moving in slow motion next to him. He ducked around back to the other side, rammed his fist, muffled by a shirt or gloves or something, into the wound I'd taken earlier.
I collapsed entirely, knees buckling and eyes rolling in my head, the pain utterly beyond my ability to cope with it. The human I'd grabbed fell with me, two bodies sliding towards the ground, limp and unresisting.
I didn't make it to the ground unscathed, of course, as my opponent somehow pulled off some kind of hook kick to the side of my head. But even with my doubled senses at this point it was just pain overkill, I barely registered my neck wrenching to the side, my ear slamming down into my shoulder as I hit the ground.
I'd landed on my back, so I could see his heel rising up above me, the stomp incoming, a straight shot to my forehead that would put an end to all the pain.
The Ultras were almost here, but they could never stop this. He'd already begun the descent, choosing to kill me rather than jump away from their rush. I might have done the same in his place.
The heel descended, boot filling my view. The pain numbed me, tyrannized and cored me apart, leaving me helpless to move or twitch as death approached.
It was hardly the first time, after all.
A voice from the past came back to me, hard and thuggish, Subtracter in the full confidence of her idiot youth.
"Anybody know who threw that?"
Another voice, Blisser's this time.
"You're so *bad*!"
And finally Hers, curiously slower than all the rest.
"Heeeeeyy Aaaasssssshhhooo….!"
I regained my agency with the boot a centimeter from my face, no time to do anything physical. I called, at the last, upon my gift.
The person I'd grabbed, at the first, still hadn't got my hand off of her face. She was 'living', and then she wasn't.
The boot arrived, my skull cracked, buckled in. Tripled pain devoured the world as my head dug into the ground.
But I Did Not Die. I was living, living, living.
I'd never worn three of the same attribute before, rarely dared to pull two in to my being. Had I lost something? Was I no longer 'mobile', or 'smart'? Would I know what I'd lost?
The enemy champion had jumped back after the deathblow, but the hands that were reaching for him wilted into subservience, my Ultras falling to their knees before him, taking the Posture.
Not before him, before Her.
Prevailer was here, all of a sudden, standing right behind my attacker. Her voice had been no flashback.
The enemy turned around instantly, blur quick, his side step placing him right between us and obscuring my view of Her.
Things fuzzed for me then, a spike of agony breaking past the numbness. I gasped aloud and arched my back, to the degree that I was capable of movement. My field of vision tilted as I did so, neck driving my head across the ground and leaving me staring off at the side wall while my attacker and my boss did their business.
I'd read somewhere that there were no nerves in the brain, but that turned out to be bullshit, because I was in a world of pain. Or maybe it was just all the other damage finally having its turn to be heard, the broken ribs and ruptured organs giving their threefold signals with all they were worth.
I lay there, frantically calling on my healing gift for all that I was worth, for a timeless infinity. It is a total cop out to say that something is indescribable, but that's what I'm hiding behind. Ok, like, until you've been savagely beaten beyond the point where a body can sustain life, but hung onto it anyway by stealing other people's life force through a gift, twice, you can't know my pain.
It was bad, is what I'm getting at.
I think I got enough wind back to start screaming at some point, which would have been the end of me, except someone clamped a hand over my mouth the moment I started, leaving me making forceful and energetic vibrating/humming noises instead of the full throated screams I was trying for.
All that time ensuring my Posse and Warband were loyal was paying off in spades.
Even more helpfully than muzzling me, or, at least, equally helpfully, that same person began to pick the bone bits out of the mess of gore that was my forehead, pulling things up and out to where they ought to be, or at least a sort of simulacrum of that.
The question of who the fuck would possibly put their hands on their boss with the death touch in this state was the start of my return to being a thinking, acting creature. I wasn't even surprised when I got my stuff working again and saw Owner, stooped above me, with a knee across my throat and her hands clamped over my mouth.
I tried to move my arm, and shockingly enough it did the thing I wanted it to, which was to thrash weakly against her leg.
She ignored it, continuing to grind my jaw closed with both hands, not even really looking down at me, her gaze locked on someone else, presumably Her.
I was about to push more forcefully, then tried something a bit more complicated, tapping my arm rapidly against her leg in the Ultra Fight 'tap out' gesture.
She looked down at me then, and I saw face ravaged by grief, now breaking into the smallest hint of relief. We locked eyes, and hers widened slightly.
I'd known Owner for a long time, so if anyone was going to do the 'wordless communication' thing, it should have been us, but actually all I got out of that was 'my eyes are slightly wider'.
I gave a slight nod, because, you know, nonverbal communication is bullshit and I was in a lot of pain. She let up on the muzzle hold that she'd been sustaining for however long I'd been laid out, hands relaxing just the slightest bit.
I managed, through what I'd like to describe as a colossal feat of willpower, but was more likely just a general inability to do things at this time, to not scream as soon as it was possible.
I'm not saying that I was choosing to scream and it was not something I could pull off, to the extent that I was the driver of my brain ship I was all about being silent in case She was still around, but that extent wasn't nearly as large as I would like, and the involuntary caucus was worryingly influential.
I tucked my chin, slightly, bringing my gaze back to where things had been going on last time I was able to watch. Things hadn't got too much farther, which meant that either I hadn't been brain locked for a terribly long time, or King Arthur was really good at verbal tap dancing, and had kept herself alive in front of Her for however long it had been. Or both.
She'd been unmasked, at least. King Arthur was a slight woman of middle years, she was currently standing in front of Prevailer, saying some stuff that I was a bit too far away to hear. Her champion was inconspicuously backing away towards one of the windows, and the other locals were down in the Posture, along with my guys.
I tried to rise to my feet, and was almost unable to recognize my situation when I actually did. Like, I was rising, my point of view was going up, how had that happened?
Owner, peerless saint that she was when she wasn't kneeling on my goddamn neck, had recognized my straining and lent a shoulder to me, hoisting me up and supporting me. I decided to tell her not to, to let her know that She took a dim view of people aiding one another.
"Bluhhh…" I said.
Work in progress, clearly. I focused on my healing gift again, reasoning that if I wanted it to work faster it might.
Across from us, people were saying words.
"Why did you rebuild all this stuff?" asked Prevailer.
"We are bringing America back." retorted King Arthur. "We are bringing civilization back!"
"Oh," She said, sounding a little disappointed, "You are just dumb. I was hoping that there was a cool reason."
"You can't stop all of us," said Arthur. "One day someone will put an end to your tyranny."
She didn't say anything to that, not directly, just kind of looking around a bit.
I flinched away from what I assumed would be some kind of extravagant vivisection, but nothing happened for a long beat.
"Look, Imbuer," said Prevailer, after thinking a bit. "You did me a solid by fixing this place up. I've wanted to come here for a while, kind of regretted that Karen knocked it all down, so, like, what do you want?"
"My name is King Arthur!" snapped my adversary, who was apparently out of her fucking mind, "And I want nothing from you!"
This time I knew there wouldn't be a beheading or whatever. She was playing with Her food now, a bully chasing the high.
"You know Arthur was a dude's name, right?" She asked. "Well, whatever. I can tell what you want easy enough. You kept fighting after you'd already lost, tried your best to kill my Warlord over there."
She waved a hand lazily at me, then did a double take when She actually saw me.
"Cover that shit up!" She snarled. "Gross!"
Owner, in a moment of dubious sainthood, instantly pulled my shirt up from my waist over my head, leaving my arms kind of hanging up in the air and an exceptionally irksome pressure on the still healing broken part of the skull in the front.
On the other hand, it was to prevent Her from ending me, so I couldn't be all that mad.
"Yes," admitted King Arthur, "I strove to destroy your fearsome champion."
Prevailer took a long look at her 'fearsome champion', who was presently doing the what I'm hoping was an awesome power pose of 'shirt over the top of my head, you don't even know where I'm looking!'.
"It's Your," corrected Prevailer. "And that's a fair trade."
"What?" spluttered King Arthur.
Hidden behind my shirt, I winced. Here it came.
"Kill yourself," said the ruler of the Regime, "And I'll kill Blender."
"You wouldn't!" she snarled.
"Sure I will," said Prevailer. "What do I care which one of you idiots does which job?"
Another long beat. I couldn't exactly bring myself to feel sympathy for King Arthur, not after what she'd done to my friends, and the danger she'd placed her followers in with her conduct during this battle, but I was rooting for her right now.
"You'll really kill her?" she asked, voice not so strident now.
Even though she was my enemy, I was hoping that she could hold onto her dignity right now. But I probably would have broken in her place. Everyone would.
"It's 'You'll'", She said.
"You will really kill her, if I kill myself?" asked Arthur, and God help me, she capitalized the pronoun.
"Sure," She said.
"Goodbye you fucker!" snarled Arthur, and made some kind of quick motion.
With my view obstructed by the shirt I couldn't really see well what was happening, but I heard the gunshot clearly enough, saw her vague form topple down to the ground.
Prevailer walked over.
"Get your people back to the Lair," She said. "Subtracter will tell you the next place in a few weeks. Leave a Boss behind in this dump to take over."
I stood helpless, head muffled in a shirt, but Owner kind of flexed me in a manner that She hopefully took as a nod.
"Oh," She said, "Make sure you keep the people out of the fixed up buildings for a few hours. I'd like to be alone."
I didn't think that would be all that hard.
**************************************************
That completes the first arc of Regime Quest! Thank you all so much for voting and reading along. Very lucky to survive this last update, a clutch role saw you through!
Some choices for you to make in the aftermath of the battle. Keep in mind as you form a plan that Blender is essentially going to need 2 days of healing from her own gift to be back right. The first day makes her not an invalid, the second gets her back in fighting shape. She can't do a lot during the first day, and can't really fight until after the second, but her followers can still get up to things.
- How do you pick which of your surviving Ultras you will leave as the Boss of Ar Harbour? (Interviews, random, other? Let me know the methodology and how much time you feel like spending on it.) Do you want to leave them any of your other followers as supporters?
- How long are you going to spend in Ar Harbour before heading back? What will you/your minions do there during that time? This answer can be as 'if/then' as you like, I will do my best to follow the logic of particularly complicated plans.
- With the trucks wrecked and Builder dead, how are you planning on getting back? Walking will take weeks, driving the better part of a day.
- Blender's forehead divot seems like it will be permanent. Is she going to pull her Sigil down to conceal it, or push it back up to make it very obvious?
- Who is Blender going to give her two extra 'Living' attributes to? Remember that while you can pull them from anything, you can only give them to people and certain animals.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Alright. Now that we are through, I kinda want some kind of analysis before moving forward.
I know that a lot of what we got was due to dice, but I wonder what we could have done to improve our chances in this battle. Could we have done something differently, perhaps? What would it be?
What was the broad range of the outcomes and which of our posible decisions would lead where?
I think it'd be only fair if he were found and brought to us.
I know that a lot of what we got was due to dice, but I wonder what we could have done to improve our chances in this battle. Could we have done something differently, perhaps? What would it be?
What was the broad range of the outcomes and which of our posible decisions would lead where?
Arthur is dead, but her champion still lives though. I mean, he kinda was backing towards the window last we saw him, but there's a lot of people around. Mostly ours. And her gift may fail with Arthur's death.
I think it'd be only fair if he were found and brought to us.
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That was kind of a weird ending? What was all that about? What was the point of any of this? In the end, Prevailer just shows up and resolves the situation.
Why even bother lying to get Arthur to kill herself? For that matter, why did Arthur hate Blender in particular enough to want to kill herself to get Blender dead? I don't get these people at all.
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Prevailer seems to get a kick out of breaking people. In the end she succeeded in making Arthur call her with a capital letter before killing herself on nothing but her word.
Arthur's hatred towards us is comparable to our hatred towards Subtractor. The one responsible for the ruination of her plans and the murder of her allies/friends... and the only one she could hope to get back at.
The one question I have is...
Arthur's hatred towards us is comparable to our hatred towards Subtractor. The one responsible for the ruination of her plans and the murder of her allies/friends... and the only one she could hope to get back at.
The one question I have is...
Was the offer genuine, or was Arthur doomed from the start? Her fate was sealed the moment she rejected it, but does Prevailer hire among the conquered Ultras?
- Location
- USA
@Nevill:
Analysis: I can give you my framework of possible outcomes/when they became not things that happened if you'd like, but if you are mostly talking to the other players I can leave that to y'all. I dunno, I know some people like to look behind the curtain, others don't. We can do either way.
Arthur's champ: He got away during the final confrontation, but he probably hasn't left the city. Not impossible he could get found (not WoG here, just sort of idle spec) if you set the force to it, though how likely that is will depend on the tactics you let them use. (They would probably default to killing people until he gave himself up.)
Genuine Offer: it has happened a few times, for Prevailer to scout enemies, but it is super rare, more commonly a case of Prevailer not realizing which side someone was on and just kind of giving orders to everyone around and a former enemy rolling with it.
@Talon:
You can definitely check up on it, but so far you seem to have skated by ok. Blender has taken 2 more attributes than her base a few times before, but never 2 extras of the same one. She wasn't sure she'd survive it, but needs must when the devil drives. It is way outside of her comfort zone, though.
@Brief:
What was the point:
From Blender's perspective, as I understand/write the character, she wanted to, 1, stay alive, 2, not become Subtracter and 3, get Regime Ultras killed. It was a rough month, but she feels that she is 3 for 3. I dunno, I've been trying to sneak a 4th of 'be a human being who is loyal to their friends and is not broken by this nightmare I live' in there, and obviously it wasn't a great month for priority 4.
From Prevailer's perspective, this episode of her favorite show was interrupted at the end when some asshole stomped on the camera. She pushed the special 'become the director' button in a moment of pique and finished it out as fanfiction.
From our perspective: I dunno, I hope y'all enjoy this as much as I do?
Analysis: I can give you my framework of possible outcomes/when they became not things that happened if you'd like, but if you are mostly talking to the other players I can leave that to y'all. I dunno, I know some people like to look behind the curtain, others don't. We can do either way.
Arthur's champ: He got away during the final confrontation, but he probably hasn't left the city. Not impossible he could get found (not WoG here, just sort of idle spec) if you set the force to it, though how likely that is will depend on the tactics you let them use. (They would probably default to killing people until he gave himself up.)
Genuine Offer: it has happened a few times, for Prevailer to scout enemies, but it is super rare, more commonly a case of Prevailer not realizing which side someone was on and just kind of giving orders to everyone around and a former enemy rolling with it.
@Talon:
You can definitely check up on it, but so far you seem to have skated by ok. Blender has taken 2 more attributes than her base a few times before, but never 2 extras of the same one. She wasn't sure she'd survive it, but needs must when the devil drives. It is way outside of her comfort zone, though.
@Brief:
What was the point:
From Blender's perspective, as I understand/write the character, she wanted to, 1, stay alive, 2, not become Subtracter and 3, get Regime Ultras killed. It was a rough month, but she feels that she is 3 for 3. I dunno, I've been trying to sneak a 4th of 'be a human being who is loyal to their friends and is not broken by this nightmare I live' in there, and obviously it wasn't a great month for priority 4.
From Prevailer's perspective, this episode of her favorite show was interrupted at the end when some asshole stomped on the camera. She pushed the special 'become the director' button in a moment of pique and finished it out as fanfiction.
From our perspective: I dunno, I hope y'all enjoy this as much as I do?
- Location
- St. Petersburg
Absolutely. I am one of those who love looking at the gears that spin the story.
If no one else objects, that is.
@Nevill @TalonofAnathrax @Walter any thoughts/comments on the plan below? I admit, I have only a vague idea how Owner's powers actually work so I might be getting them wrong, and maybe the "Living" experiment is an automatic no-go.
[X] Plan Clean-Up
Boss of Ar Harbour
Interview the surviving Ultras about both the battle, but also find out which ones were the ringleaders on confronting Smasher about her drinking problem. That showed actual empathy. Pick whichever of those ringleaders seems to have the respect of the rest of the Ultras and also didn't do anything too stupid during the battle. Let her pick two or three other followers that she thinks will be loyal to back her up. Spend a good day or so on the choice, and then make it like being declared Boss is a big reward and that it's their responsibility to both keep order but also keep the buildings in good shape in case Prevailer ever wants to come back here again and 'enjoy them'.
How long in Ar Harbour and What to Do?
At a minimum, spend the required couple of days healing up. See if Owner can produce some beer and party supplies from her 'Store' and then throw a party for your followers to celebrate their victory. During this time make the story that they start telling each other and themselves (and everyone else once you get back to the Lair) is that this was a total victory, you took a hit but were 'totally going to take Arthur down', and it all amused Prevailer enough to shop up and demonstrate Her power, etc., etc. Whatever will sound best.
Other priorities:
See if you can get information from some of the local non-Ultras about what was going on here over the past few months. Offer some free healing here, some promises that you'll give a recommendation to the new Boss on who is "reliable" there, and maybe even some Old World toys from Owner. Lots of people will likely be falling over themselves to talk. Questions to Answer:
1. What did Arthur's crew think they were doing, what did they promise, and how were they operating?
2. What was the Union up to; did anyone talk to them or their obvious agents. Did they leave any technology caches behind?
3. Any local Ultras with "interesting" powers who did not get caught up in the fighting and might be recruitable or contrariwise who could be trouble?
4. Any old folks among the non-Ultras who might remember truck repairs and be able to do something with the damaged trucks, or alternately any other leads on better means of transport than walking on foot?
5. Snitcher isn't likely to be paying very much attention at all once Prevailer leaves. Might be time to communicate with any local KEM contacts using the usual methods and see if they have any requests before you leave.
If there's something worth following up on, then follow it up. Otherwise leave after a week or so.
How to get back?
If something useful turned up or we were able to get a working truck, use that. Otherwise, the plan is that Owner purchases a bunch of bicycles (those are cheap enough she should be able to outfit the whole crew without burning through too much of her savings) and we ride back. Much slower than driving, but it still ought to be a lot faster than walking. And actually, seeing something of the country along the way isn't the worst thing in the world. Who knows what Ultras or other opportunities we might stumble across? As long as we make it back well before Subtractor's next assignment.
Forehead Divot
Keep it concealed under the Sigil most of the time. That way we can suddenly reveal it when we want to impress or frighten someone with what a tough bitch we are.
Extra Living Attributes
1. I can't give attributes to anything but people or certain animals... normally. But "Living", that one seems like it might be special. What would happen if I tried to give it to a recently deceased person? Could it bring them back to life? As soon as this occurs to me, demand to have Builder's body brought to me and see if it's in any shape to give this a try! If her body isn't intact, try it with any deceased follower whose body is intact. If none of them have an intact body, try it on a random dead person just to see.
2. If resurrecting the dead works, pause and really consider who else to bring back from the dead depending on how well it actually worked and what my options are. If it didn't work, then take Owner aside and ask her if she wants one of the Living attributes. Make her understand the risks and possible benefits, and give it if she wants it. (make sure she's produced the bicycles first though.)
3. If putting the first Living into a dead body didn't work at all, just keep it for a while and figure out who or what to give it to later.
[X] Plan Clean-Up
Boss of Ar Harbour
Interview the surviving Ultras about both the battle, but also find out which ones were the ringleaders on confronting Smasher about her drinking problem. That showed actual empathy. Pick whichever of those ringleaders seems to have the respect of the rest of the Ultras and also didn't do anything too stupid during the battle. Let her pick two or three other followers that she thinks will be loyal to back her up. Spend a good day or so on the choice, and then make it like being declared Boss is a big reward and that it's their responsibility to both keep order but also keep the buildings in good shape in case Prevailer ever wants to come back here again and 'enjoy them'.
How long in Ar Harbour and What to Do?
At a minimum, spend the required couple of days healing up. See if Owner can produce some beer and party supplies from her 'Store' and then throw a party for your followers to celebrate their victory. During this time make the story that they start telling each other and themselves (and everyone else once you get back to the Lair) is that this was a total victory, you took a hit but were 'totally going to take Arthur down', and it all amused Prevailer enough to shop up and demonstrate Her power, etc., etc. Whatever will sound best.
Other priorities:
See if you can get information from some of the local non-Ultras about what was going on here over the past few months. Offer some free healing here, some promises that you'll give a recommendation to the new Boss on who is "reliable" there, and maybe even some Old World toys from Owner. Lots of people will likely be falling over themselves to talk. Questions to Answer:
1. What did Arthur's crew think they were doing, what did they promise, and how were they operating?
2. What was the Union up to; did anyone talk to them or their obvious agents. Did they leave any technology caches behind?
3. Any local Ultras with "interesting" powers who did not get caught up in the fighting and might be recruitable or contrariwise who could be trouble?
4. Any old folks among the non-Ultras who might remember truck repairs and be able to do something with the damaged trucks, or alternately any other leads on better means of transport than walking on foot?
5. Snitcher isn't likely to be paying very much attention at all once Prevailer leaves. Might be time to communicate with any local KEM contacts using the usual methods and see if they have any requests before you leave.
If there's something worth following up on, then follow it up. Otherwise leave after a week or so.
How to get back?
If something useful turned up or we were able to get a working truck, use that. Otherwise, the plan is that Owner purchases a bunch of bicycles (those are cheap enough she should be able to outfit the whole crew without burning through too much of her savings) and we ride back. Much slower than driving, but it still ought to be a lot faster than walking. And actually, seeing something of the country along the way isn't the worst thing in the world. Who knows what Ultras or other opportunities we might stumble across? As long as we make it back well before Subtractor's next assignment.
Forehead Divot
Keep it concealed under the Sigil most of the time. That way we can suddenly reveal it when we want to impress or frighten someone with what a tough bitch we are.
Extra Living Attributes
1. I can't give attributes to anything but people or certain animals... normally. But "Living", that one seems like it might be special. What would happen if I tried to give it to a recently deceased person? Could it bring them back to life? As soon as this occurs to me, demand to have Builder's body brought to me and see if it's in any shape to give this a try! If her body isn't intact, try it with any deceased follower whose body is intact. If none of them have an intact body, try it on a random dead person just to see.
2. If resurrecting the dead works, pause and really consider who else to bring back from the dead depending on how well it actually worked and what my options are. If it didn't work, then take Owner aside and ask her if she wants one of the Living attributes. Make her understand the risks and possible benefits, and give it if she wants it. (make sure she's produced the bicycles first though.)
3. If putting the first Living into a dead body didn't work at all, just keep it for a while and figure out who or what to give it to later.
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
...why bicycles?
Owner could probably rent us a bus. We don't need much more as there are few survivors.
Otherwise... well, it's a plan. Trying to give 'living' to a dead body is inspired, even. I sure wouldn't think it'd work. Maybe it won't. Would be funnier still if they come back wrong.
...poor Builder.
Owner could probably rent us a bus. We don't need much more as there are few survivors.
Otherwise... well, it's a plan. Trying to give 'living' to a dead body is inspired, even. I sure wouldn't think it'd work. Maybe it won't. Would be funnier still if they come back wrong.
...poor Builder.
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...why bicycles?
Owner could probably rent us a bus. We don't need much more as there are few survivors.
Otherwise... well, it's a plan. Trying to give 'living' to a dead body is inspired, even. I sure wouldn't think it'd work. Maybe it won't. Would be funnier still if they come back wrong.
...poor Builder.
Can Owner do something like rent a bus? Like I said, I am extremely vague on how her power works. I know it was explained once, but I can't really remember and couldn't find it on a quick search. That said... remember that our character Mia has the following attributes from character creation:
Ask yourself, are we actually in some kind of a hurry to get back to the Lair and that pit of snakes? Maybe it's time to take our crew on an extended field trip, show them the ropes of traveling between cities, and renew contacts people we've met along the way. A slower trip by bicycle might actually be a nice vacation after all the recent stress.
As for Builder, we still don't know exactly how she died even. One moment she was there, then we lost her in the chaos and confusion of battle, and now in this wrap-up we find out she died somewhere off-screen. That's how life goes, I guess. But yeah, all possible consequences of trying to give her body "Living" seem pretty funny.
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- Location
- St. Petersburg
I mean, we are still, for all intents and purposes, a warband. Your plan is trying to spin the story to build our reputation as a warlord up.
...a warband of Ultras on bicycles does not quite inspire fear...
It telegraphs we got wrecked so hard we couldn't find anything better to get back.
(it also makes me think what kind of reaction Imbuer would have if we invaded on bicycles instead of trucks. It would probably grant us an advantage as her troops would either fall into a stupor trying to understand what they are looking at, or fall over laughing)
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I mean, we are still, for all intents and purposes, a warband. Your plan is trying to spin the story to build our reputation as a warlord up.
...a warband of Ultras on bicycles does not quite inspire fear...
...or makes an impression of success, for that matter.
It telegraphs we got wrecked so hard we couldn't find anything better to get back.
Most people just travel on foot anyway unless they have access to a fast-travel ultra-power. I appreciate that you took the time to find that Hulk picture, but I think it's misplaced. Nobody is going to be laughing at a group traveling around on Old World technology, even if it's something as comparatively simple as bicycles. The reason you think bicycles don't inspire fear or imply less than success are tied up with cultural stuff that doesn't apply. Showing up on bicycles is like showing up on horses... a sign that you have access to resources that other people don't, not that you're using some kind of weak, inferior transports.
- Location
- USA
Ok, so this update is in response to Nevill's asking for insight into why/what happened. Skip if you don't want to know anything that Blender doesn't know, only read on if you are ok with being spoiled.
So, the first big pivot is in character creation, and it basically amounts to 'loyalist or insurgent', with the quest choosing 'insurgent'. Loyalist is obviously a much easier quest. I was expecting this one, and it matched what I'd planned out.
The next pivot was the choice of targets, with the party choosing the unaligned target instead of the Union or Pantheon one. Locking that in obviously set you up to interact with a lot of different NPCs than would otherwise be the case.
The next big choice that I couldn't forsee was whether the party would go along with the basic 'kill Arthur' storyline, or whether you'd buck. Like, I know Questers, sometimes y'all just veer off into plans the QM could never anticipate. In this case, I considered it feasible for the players to intuit that King Arthur & co. probably had resistance/KEM allies and to reach out to them, trying to set up a deal of some kind, hiding this from Snitcher.
On that path the hard thing (aside from hiding from Snitcher, which is obviously a lot harder if you are spending a lot of actions on treachery) is convincing Arthur that she needs to take a dive and let you take over, while working together to get a section of the Regime's worst assholes killed in a fixed battle. She would have wanted, instead, for you guys to lose, but you would presumably point out that Prevailer wouldn't really tolerate 3 losses to the same nobodies, and would just send Subtracter/A Fist to take them out.
Once it was clear that we weren't going that way, the next big problem was the possibility of KEM betraying Blender to King Arthur. Remember that during the start of the quest Blender is radio silent to them, and it kind of looks like maybe she thinks she doesn't need them anymore now that she is Warlord. King Arthur is also a friend of theirs, so they have a tough time choosing between you.
The players cleared this one with their friendliness towards the Knights, blaming an Ultra instead of them. KEM liked this enough that they decided to work with both sides in this conflict, rather than just luring Blender into a trap for King Arthur's assassins, which had good odds of ending the quest. (KEM and Knights have some unofficial ties/channels)
There is another danger point around here, not really at any specific point in time but just early on in general, in that Nevill is one of the main posters but hasn't (to my knowledge) read TFD. So it was possible that they would propose something that would be reasonable in another post apoc superhero dystopia that wouldn't fly here, no one else would vote, they'd win the coin flip with CC and the quest would end that way. It didn't manifest, but I noted it as a sizeable possibility.
With this early stuff past the quest began to move towards the basic failure end of just doing what was expected. You'd build a warband, get a Posse, then the Posse would get assassinated right before you attacked and the warband would get drone struck on the way over. You guys avoided this pretty narrowly when you chose to change the attack date to an earlier one and (very importantly) keep the change totally secret. You ended up leaving just before the killers showed up.
There was another big branch in the role of you guys trying to have Merlin taken out. If that roll goes badly and Merlin is still active the battle in Ar Harbour is monstrously hard, not necessarily unwinnable, but it would have needed some excellent rolling and really good ideas.
But Merlin is REDACTED and you changed your timetable, so now you are in Ar Harbour with a stronger force than the locals have.
Taking a step back, there is another fork here, which is you guys choosing Builder as a Posse member, and then bringing her to the battlefield. The Union really really doesn't like Builder. They want her double dead. When you took her out of Shington the local Union guys were able to get permission to stay and fight, rather than just kidnapping King Arthur and dragging her away (the Union had a serious hard on for King Arthur, they wanted her back in their country helping out on the eastern front, but she kept putting them off for one more month). This obviously makes your fight a lot harder.
So you guys show up, Arthur knows she'll probably lose a straight fight, opts to basically wait and see.
The fork here is that you guys might just do something bad. In particular, it is very very good for the enemy if you divide your forces.
That doesn't happen and the fight begins. Builder & Owner aren't particularly well guarded, so the Union hitter can take them out (or, Builder, at least), but their side isn't much better off, so you are able to get to Guin just as easily.
The dice did most of the forking during the battle, noteworthy decisions by the players including focusing on Guin (the right call, they were winning on ties with her gift) and then consolidating a bit (debatably the wrong one, it let Arthur get her second unit up).
King Arthur ultimately went for an assassination attempt on Blender after she'd lost, so the players' decisions in the second half were mostly about that. You guys managed to avoid getting killed and also avoided slaughtering the surrendering enemy, but obviously the choices not to put Ultras in front of Blender lead to an incredibly dangerous die roll to not end the quest, where you had 1d12 and they had 2d10 take highest.
Last fork to really mention is that Smasher being dead heads off the possibility that she looks at crippled Blender and squishes her, deciding that she is the Warlord now. Not saying it would have happened, but it was a serious possibility, with her being the warband's locus of loyalty, and her general brutal energy clashing with Blender's more humane impulses.
Few, that was long. So yeah, lots of things could have gone differently over the course of this deal. Most of those differences were much worse.
So, the first big pivot is in character creation, and it basically amounts to 'loyalist or insurgent', with the quest choosing 'insurgent'. Loyalist is obviously a much easier quest. I was expecting this one, and it matched what I'd planned out.
The next pivot was the choice of targets, with the party choosing the unaligned target instead of the Union or Pantheon one. Locking that in obviously set you up to interact with a lot of different NPCs than would otherwise be the case.
The next big choice that I couldn't forsee was whether the party would go along with the basic 'kill Arthur' storyline, or whether you'd buck. Like, I know Questers, sometimes y'all just veer off into plans the QM could never anticipate. In this case, I considered it feasible for the players to intuit that King Arthur & co. probably had resistance/KEM allies and to reach out to them, trying to set up a deal of some kind, hiding this from Snitcher.
On that path the hard thing (aside from hiding from Snitcher, which is obviously a lot harder if you are spending a lot of actions on treachery) is convincing Arthur that she needs to take a dive and let you take over, while working together to get a section of the Regime's worst assholes killed in a fixed battle. She would have wanted, instead, for you guys to lose, but you would presumably point out that Prevailer wouldn't really tolerate 3 losses to the same nobodies, and would just send Subtracter/A Fist to take them out.
Once it was clear that we weren't going that way, the next big problem was the possibility of KEM betraying Blender to King Arthur. Remember that during the start of the quest Blender is radio silent to them, and it kind of looks like maybe she thinks she doesn't need them anymore now that she is Warlord. King Arthur is also a friend of theirs, so they have a tough time choosing between you.
The players cleared this one with their friendliness towards the Knights, blaming an Ultra instead of them. KEM liked this enough that they decided to work with both sides in this conflict, rather than just luring Blender into a trap for King Arthur's assassins, which had good odds of ending the quest. (KEM and Knights have some unofficial ties/channels)
There is another danger point around here, not really at any specific point in time but just early on in general, in that Nevill is one of the main posters but hasn't (to my knowledge) read TFD. So it was possible that they would propose something that would be reasonable in another post apoc superhero dystopia that wouldn't fly here, no one else would vote, they'd win the coin flip with CC and the quest would end that way. It didn't manifest, but I noted it as a sizeable possibility.
With this early stuff past the quest began to move towards the basic failure end of just doing what was expected. You'd build a warband, get a Posse, then the Posse would get assassinated right before you attacked and the warband would get drone struck on the way over. You guys avoided this pretty narrowly when you chose to change the attack date to an earlier one and (very importantly) keep the change totally secret. You ended up leaving just before the killers showed up.
There was another big branch in the role of you guys trying to have Merlin taken out. If that roll goes badly and Merlin is still active the battle in Ar Harbour is monstrously hard, not necessarily unwinnable, but it would have needed some excellent rolling and really good ideas.
But Merlin is REDACTED and you changed your timetable, so now you are in Ar Harbour with a stronger force than the locals have.
Taking a step back, there is another fork here, which is you guys choosing Builder as a Posse member, and then bringing her to the battlefield. The Union really really doesn't like Builder. They want her double dead. When you took her out of Shington the local Union guys were able to get permission to stay and fight, rather than just kidnapping King Arthur and dragging her away (the Union had a serious hard on for King Arthur, they wanted her back in their country helping out on the eastern front, but she kept putting them off for one more month). This obviously makes your fight a lot harder.
So you guys show up, Arthur knows she'll probably lose a straight fight, opts to basically wait and see.
The fork here is that you guys might just do something bad. In particular, it is very very good for the enemy if you divide your forces.
That doesn't happen and the fight begins. Builder & Owner aren't particularly well guarded, so the Union hitter can take them out (or, Builder, at least), but their side isn't much better off, so you are able to get to Guin just as easily.
The dice did most of the forking during the battle, noteworthy decisions by the players including focusing on Guin (the right call, they were winning on ties with her gift) and then consolidating a bit (debatably the wrong one, it let Arthur get her second unit up).
King Arthur ultimately went for an assassination attempt on Blender after she'd lost, so the players' decisions in the second half were mostly about that. You guys managed to avoid getting killed and also avoided slaughtering the surrendering enemy, but obviously the choices not to put Ultras in front of Blender lead to an incredibly dangerous die roll to not end the quest, where you had 1d12 and they had 2d10 take highest.
Last fork to really mention is that Smasher being dead heads off the possibility that she looks at crippled Blender and squishes her, deciding that she is the Warlord now. Not saying it would have happened, but it was a serious possibility, with her being the warband's locus of loyalty, and her general brutal energy clashing with Blender's more humane impulses.
Few, that was long. So yeah, lots of things could have gone differently over the course of this deal. Most of those differences were much worse.