If they are the same, they're a subtype that found 'this one cool trick', to be (mostly) stable in identity and interests, even if both tend to the nonsensical or extreme statistically.
I joked about it, but I believe that in the last thread nothing was confirmed, not even which cosmology has primacy and even if the exaltation is actually in the same dimension.
If they are the same, they're a subtype that found 'this one cool trick', to be (mostly) stable in identity and interests, even if both tend to the nonsensical or extreme statistically.
My guess is, that "one cool trick" was reinforcing their stories into collective cognition of humanity, allowing them to also be summoned as Personas. Though I'm sure getting fed human sacrifices by that one cult doesn't hurt either.
Surprisingly doable, with an appropriate stunt and WP, though not with anything near reliability. Unfortunately, I'm not sure what we can do about the rift, besides trying to feed our enemies' minds to the thing like Saaya was doing with her mind.
I assume the default approach is Amu feeding HER mind to it and hoping hers is bigger than Saaya's and either gives it indigestion or is big enough to bully it into shutting on its own.
The only better approach I can think of at the moment is a joint effort between ALL the currently-present ex-Guardians trying doing it at the same time. But that's a bit difficult when there's angry bird bleeding lava trying to kill you all.
While your associations were intentional, this bit is a typo. Though Amu was loopy enough at the time that, who knows, this might be how she actually thought.
It was a application of psionic illusion (the honey to replace blood and burn infection), then the healing psi discipline I think. In this setting high level illusion is more like.... reality shaping (what's called a shaping effect in exalted). There is a post by the author a page or two back about it.
Blow a hole in the side of the building? I'm starting to worry about its structural integrity, but that's definitely a thing she can do, which he can't.
I assume the default approach is Amu feeding HER mind to it and hoping hers is bigger than Saaya's and either gives it indigestion or is big enough to bully it into shutting on its own.
Blow a hole in the side of the building? I'm starting to worry about its structural integrity, but that's definitely a thing she can do, which he can't.
Well considering Tadase is starting to flag and probably can't hold the rift back much longer unless some one else can reinforce him at this point... I guess one option would be to try and snipe one of those roc beings for Nadeshiko so she'd hopefully have a clear advantage for a bit again and then try to quickly extract Tadase... Not sure Amu really has all that much strength left to help Tadase out further either.
If only Rima or Utau were here, but we seemed to have been going from emergency to emergency with little chance to even phone.
Don't suppose anyone has an idea where we could fit some kind of message to any of them in?
I joked about it, but I believe that in the last thread nothing was confirmed, not even which cosmology has primacy and even if the exaltation is actually in the same dimension.
In the previous iteration of this quest, the fundamental cosmology was that of the novo-vacuum from Greg Egan's book Schild's Ladder. Both the Essence of Exalted's cosmology and the magic stuff of SMT were built on that foundation and are similar, but not actually the same, and not every feature of Exaltation translates over cleanly. The current location is further away from the remnants of Creation then any place described in an Exalted source book.
That could have changed, but I suspect it's still largely correct.
Which implies the Shugo Chara's Road of Stars is apparently Persona's Sea of Souls ("vast sea cauldron of souls") here, or at least somewhere adjacent enough that Amu could summon a Persona through it. Unless she let an actual Silky possess her and not just the Persona of one, but given the "sea of souls" reference, seems more likely to be the Persona.
We're getting close enough to the Convergence (I always forget what its called) that the barrier is wearing thin.
Realty is literally being gouged open right now.
So, Demons are the one's walking by the blocked off cave entrance while the shadows on the wall are the, well, Shadows. And Personas. So what's being summoned might have once been only a persona, but at this point its likely also a good helping of actual demon that's not quite manifesting fully. Or, hmm... A demon manifesting as a persona? That sounds right.
I have an idea that might be able to accomplish all the default options at once (plus make a phone call at the same time) but exactly how we might help Kukai would depend on the answer to my question. If it's too impractical, the backup idea would need us to hope Tadase has enough juice left to conjure one more Holy Crown.
I don't think anybody's going to vote against keeping the Charas loaded, so we still get a "free" transform as long as we pay upkeep.
My idea was to transform and summon the Heart Rod in her dominant hand and Amulet Clover's Bubble Wand in her non-dominant one, throw the Heart Rod at the school building hard enough to blow open a hole near Tadase for him to run out, while using the Bubble Wand to cast Honey Bubbles on the demons at the same time.
Canonically, Honey Bubbles was a wide-area immobilizing attack that blows a stream of, well, honey bubbles, that are adhesive enough to trap groups (of humans, the first time she used it) together. Here, it would hopefully gum up the demons' feathers enough to remove their mobility advantage and let Nadeshiko go to town on them.
Clover doesn't actually need to use her mouth to blow the bubbles, she just swings the wand. That means after Amu throws her Rod, she can use that hand to phone someone at the same time.
The issue is that if we break the wall to bust out Tadase, he stops holding back the rift and the building probably starts collapsing. Ideally, before she breaks the wall, she'd conjure up an improptu slide leading to the roof so that Kukai could send people down instead of assumingly having to fly them down one-by-one like he's currently trying.
But if she can't conjure a slide big enough, the backup would be to bust out Tadase and hopefully have him use Holy Crown to make a trampoline for people to jump onto from the roof.
EDIT: It's possible the bird demons may be these things, even though they're not described as bleeding fire.
It's still correct, I don't mind saying. I doubt somewhat that it'll ever come up, but I like having a complete model of the reality she lives in, in my head. You can probably also treat my old informational post on the subject as correct, but don't quote me on that -- some elements in the middle are likely to change.
So, Demons are the one's walking by the blocked off cave entrance while the shadows on the wall are the, well, Shadows. And Personas. So what's being summoned might have once been only a persona, but at this point its likely also a good helping of actual demon that's not quite manifesting fully. Or, hmm... A demon manifesting as a persona? That sounds right.
Hmm. I very much want to say 'yes', 'yes she can', or 'hell yes'. All of those would be lies, but I very much want to say it, because what you're planning sounds awesome and I wish it could be in the story. It would be a bit bizarre, yes, but awesome.
But no, unfortunately, that's outside her range. The largest tactile illusion we've seen her create is approximately room-sized, and was nothing more solid than a pile of, er, whipped cream if I recall.
My idea was to transform and summon the Heart Rod in her dominant hand and Amulet Clover's Bubble Wand in her non-dominant one, throw the Heart Rod at the school building hard enough to blow open a hole near Tadase for him to run out, while using the Bubble Wand to cast Honey Bubbles on the demons at the same time.
You can do this, but I want to warn you, you wouldn't easily be able to tell if there's anyone other than Tadase standing in the way. Tadase could certainly survive a wall getting blasted in towards him, as could anyone else inside his field, so I think it's unlikely this would cause a problem -- to the point that I'm not going to roll for it -- I mention this because Amu's decision to do so would, regardless, mean she's acting more reckless than normal.
(Amu's mental sense isn't anything as convenient as sight. It's a lot closer to feeling nearby heat sources, and right now there's a lot of mist in the way. Which is mixing analogies, but regardless.)
Those are the ones I based them on, yeah. You're going to find there's a lot more variability in the demons than any of the games could render; the games have engine limitations, after all.
That being said, it's... uh... I don't know if I should say this...
I based them on a friend's ROG Strix laptop, which has backlight issues that he has described as 'bleeding fire'. That was well over a year ago, so I actually forgot the name. XD
(Amu's mental sense isn't anything as convenient as sight. It's a lot closer to feeling nearby heat sources, and right now there's a lot of mist in the way. Which is mixing analogies, but regardless.)
Has the rift expanded so wide that 1-A is already fully encompassed by it, or is it still possible that someone could reach Tadase (or that Tadase could go out) by climbing through 1-A's windows?
Has the rift expanded so wide that 1-A is already fully encompassed by it, or is it still possible that someone could reach Tadase (or that Tadase could go out) by climbing through 1-A's windows?
Climbing through the windows should be feasible. Honestly, if it had expanded as much as you're suggesting then the building would have already collapsed.
Climbing through the windows should be feasible. Honestly, if it had expanded as much as you're suggesting then the building would have already collapsed.
[] Help Everyone.
-[] Transform. Arm up. Heart Rod on the right, Bubble Wand on the left.
-[] Nadeshiko's having trouble keeping up with multiple speedy bird-demons. Slow them all down. Launch Honey Bubbles, as sticky as you can make them, while doing everything else.
-[] Sense where Tadase is. Look through 1-A's windows. Map a clear trajectory from the windows, through 1-A's doors and to the point you think Tadase is standing in the corridor beyond.
-[] Use Sweet Applique to adorn the Heart Rod with a ribbon sporting the very large, visible words: "Get Out: Platinum Heart".
-[] Spiral Heart. Launch the Heart Rod through 1-A's windows, out the door, curving it as close to where you think Tadase is standing in the hallway as possible. Make the sparkling trail of your Rod as impossible for anyone inside to miss as you can. Leave the Rod for him to grab.
-[] Your right hand is now free. Grab your phone, ring Utau. Tell her to haul ass. But in nicer words.
-[] Kukai is ferrying people by hand. Conjure up a giant bowl full of gelatin, as big and bouncy as you can make it, to serve as a safety net so people can jump down on their own instead.
--[] If/once you are too exhausted to sustain the gelatin, as soon as Tadase exits the building, ask if he can use Holy Crown to make a safety net for the people on the roof to jump onto.
We can let Tadase blow up the wall himself.
And if Amu happens to need physical contact with that Rod to execute the joint attack with Tadase - she can make that ribbon on the Rod extra-long, with one end tied to her wrist.
Climbing through the windows should be feasible. Honestly, if it had expanded as much as you're suggesting then the building would have already collapsed.
I doubt the entire building would collapse from that, especially Earthquake hardened ones. You'd probably bring down everything above it and having anything to the sides of it continuing to stand... though looking a lot worse for wear obviously. You see that kind of damage a fair bit in war zones really.
Looks like this rakasha is not a fan of majestic 💜 shaped shaping attacks that change 💕 so they can be healed
Lmao imagine you're a being of pure story stuff in the grimdark apocalypse pileup epic and just notice that there is a magical girl negativity cleansing child anime that is deeply unedgy going on for years you just missed.
[X] Help Everyone.
-[X] Transform. Arm up. Heart Rod on the right, Bubble Wand on the left.
-[X] Nadeshiko's having trouble keeping up with multiple speedy bird-demons. Slow them all down. Launch Honey Bubbles, as sticky as you can make them, while doing everything else.
-[X] Sense where Tadase is. Look through 1-A's windows. Map a clear trajectory from the windows, through 1-A's doors and to the point you think Tadase is standing in the corridor beyond.
-[X] Use Sweet Applique to adorn the Heart Rod with a ribbon sporting the very large, visible words: "Get Out: Platinum Heart".
-[X] Spiral Heart. Launch the Heart Rod through 1-A's windows, out the door, curving it as close to where you think Tadase is standing in the hallway as possible. Make the sparkling trail of your Rod as impossible for anyone inside to miss as you can. Leave the Rod for him to grab.
-[X] Your right hand is now free. Grab your phone, ring Utau. Tell her to haul ass. But in nicer words.
-[X] Kukai is ferrying people by hand. Conjure up a giant bowl full of gelatin, as big and bouncy as you can make it, to serve as a safety net so people can jump down on their own instead.
--[X] If/once you are too exhausted to sustain the gelatin, as soon as Tadase exits the building, ask if he can use Holy Crown to make a safety net for the people on the roof to jump onto.
We can let Tadase blow up the wall himself.
And if Amu happens to need physical contact with that Rod to execute the joint attack with Tadase - she can make that ribbon on the Rod extra-long, with one end tied to her wrist.
Amu felt wired. Not tired at all, but like her brain was buzzing with electricity. Her muscles were full of energy, her lungs were full of air, and her skin was practically humming. That was all good and fine, except she'd just run halfway across the school grounds carrying a girl who was just about her own size.
The being's attention lingered on the wounds to the child's abdomen. It was a shame that it could not repair her fully. There was only so much it could do; already Amu was flagging, the energy needed to heal this degree of damage was enormous, the child had reached her limit. It would have to make do.
I think we need to be efficient with our remaining energy. Trying to make a giant jello bowl as big as Amu can make it, and keep it up until Amu is too exhausted to do so any more, while splitting her attention and energy shooting honey at anything that joins the fight, seems like a dangerously large energy expenditure. Especially if that "Platinum Heart" message means you're actually hoping to use Platinum Heart at some point, I don't think the jello bowl is a good move. (Is Platinum Heart what you're hoping Tadase will blow open the wall with?)
I don't trust Amu to realize when she's about to run out of energy. She might just pass out once the adrenaline rush wears off. Even if she doesn't, I don't want her to lose hold of the jello effect while someone is jumping.
I'm glad we got word out to Lulu early. She may not have been able to tell us how to close the rift, but this situation is rapidly spiraling out of control. We need that backup desperately.
I hope we can contact that mystery medical expert again. They really helped us out. I want to express our gratitude, and try to arrange further cooperation, and figure out if either of Amu or Saaya are in demonic medical debt now.
I think we need to be efficient with our remaining energy. Trying to make a giant jello bowl as big as Amu can make it, and keep it up until Amu is too exhausted to do so any more, while splitting her attention and energy shooting honey at anything that joins the fight, seems like a dangerously large energy expenditure.
Amu felt wired. Not tired at all, but like her brain was buzzing with electricity. Her muscles were full of energy, her lungs were full of air, and her skin was practically humming. That was all good and fine, except she'd just run halfway across the school grounds carrying a girl who was just about her own size.
She had enough superhuman strength to leg it to her father carrying Saaya too. I think the demon left her charged up somehow. It could just have been a description of her adrenaline rush, but the option to close the rift also says "Amu will be exhausted whether or not it works" implying that she currently is not.
I'd also like to point out that if you assume Amu is already too exhausted to do much, she won't be able to meaningfully help any of the others anyway - not blow a hole for Tadase, not help fight with Nadeshiko and certainly not help Kukai ferry people from the roof, which requires flying.
I have to assume she has energy left for all those tasks, if they are given as options.
Especially if that "Platinum Heart" message means you're actually hoping to use Platinum Heart at some point, I don't think the jello bowl is a good move. (Is Platinum Heart what you're hoping Tadase will blow open the wall with?)
Yes. Though I assume half the energy is going to come from Tadase and if it takes the same total amount to blow the wall as Amu would have needed on her own, she'd actually be using less with Tadase contributing half of it.
Since Shugo Chara special attacks except for Open Heart are only stunts in this quest, I'd assume the actual resource expenditures don't change no matter whether it's described blandly as "joint telekinetic strike on the wall" or "Platinum Heart".
She had enough superhuman strength to leg it to her father carrying Saaya too. I think the demon left her charged up somehow. The option to close the rift also says "Amu will be exhausted whether or not it works" implying that she currently is not.
I'd also like to point out that if you assume Amu is already too exhausted to do much, she won't be able to meaningfully help any of the others anyway - not blow a hole for Tadase, not help fight with Nadeshiko and certainly not help Kukai ferry people from the roof, which requires flying.
I have to assume she has energy left for all those tasks, if they are given as options.
All those tasks at the same time, though, especially if you're explicitly saying to perform one of those tasks to the point of exhaustion?
I don't think her helper charged her up. I think this is just Amu running on adrenaline, unable to properly feel her limits, pushing herself beyond what her helper was willing to risk. She can't do that for long, and her injury risk is greatly heightened while acting in such a state.
I mean, this is why I mentioned swapping out with Tadase once he came out. Though there are alternative ideas.
@Baughn - Would conjuring that bowl of jelly be a one-time expenditure of energy or a continuous expenditure of energy? And how much more or less would this require than conjuring/keeping conjured a set of long ribbons leading from the roof to, say, a nearby tree as a set of makeshift ziplines?
I don't trust Amu to realize when she's about to run out of energy. She might just pass out once the adrenaline rush wears off. Even if she doesn't, I don't want her to lose hold of the jello effect while someone is jumping.
I'm not sure Amu's power is really expressed as a stored energy amount, certainly we don't have such a stat given and it is a psychic power after all. Instead as I currently understand it her ability to keep going on would be limited by her mental endurance, so limited by things like willpower, etc. Thus her getting tired would then be a sign of her willpower reserves depleting over time, and thus how much longer she can keep staying focused.
Though hopefully @Baughn is willing to confirm if I understood that correctly from their previous comments in thread on the matter.
I'm not sure Amu's power is really expressed as a stored energy amount, certainly we don't have such a stat given and it is a psychic power after all. Instead as I currently understand it her ability to keep going on would be limited by her mental endurance, so limited by things like willpower, etc. Thus her getting tired would then be a sign of her willpower reserves depleting over time, and thus how much longer she can keep staying focused.
Though hopefully @Baughn is willing to confirm if I understood that correctly from their previous comments in thread on the matter.
Speaking purely in terms of physical muscle exertion, I though my proposal was about as efficient as it gets.
Amu is effectively just standing still outside the building, spamming psionics and chatting on her phone. The alternatives would involve her physically flying up the roof to help Kukai, or running into the building to help Tadase, or jumping around with Nadeshiko trying to whack bird.
The only way I can see her using any less physical muscle outright is if she doesn't even wave her wand or rod, just makes phone calls.
Now, my impression was that using psionics WOULD physically tire her out, as psionically closing the rift would leave her exhausted and we know she gets exhausted telekinetically lifting a sofa when untransformed.
However, we also know that Amu can conjure edible cookies with her psionics. My impression was that these were one-and-done conjurations, as it doesn't make sense for the cookies to just disappear halfway through eating them. My hope is that conjured jelly would act the same way as the cookies - a one-time expenditure that wouldn't suddenly disappear halfway. Would need to wait on confirmation from @Baughn about that.
If it turns out there's a risk of exhausting herself doing that, I'll switch to plan C, which is the ribbon zipline alternative.
Amu won't have to worry about exhausting herself on that one, because it won't be Amu conjuring the ribbons in that scenario.
@Baughn - Would conjuring that bowl of jelly be a one-time expenditure of energy or a continuous expenditure of energy? And how much more or less would this require than conjuring/keeping conjured a set of long ribbons leading from the roof to, say, a nearby tree as a set of makeshift ziplines?
It can be a one-time expenditure, but conjuring something that's meant to stick around forever is far more exhausting than something she lets fade away. The latter requires constant effort, of course, but the crossover point is somewhere around one hour.
Amu only has Illusion 1. She's only capable of making tactile illusions if she's effectively stunting it with one of her charas—leaning into their themes—and the ribbons you're talking about would be huge; Ran can do ribbons, but that's definitely pushing it. On the other hand, a bowl of jelly large enough for someone to land in would also be huge. You can do either of these, but I think you should be prepared for Amu to fall over afterwards.
Now, my impression was that using psionics WOULD physically tire her out, as psionically closing the rift would leave her exhausted and we know she gets exhausted telekinetically lifting a sofa when untransformed.
It tires her out, anyway. Whether or not it's "physically" is a question of semantics; certainly her muscles don't get tired, but...
———
How tired Amu gets from any given feat of psionics depends on how accustomed she is to doing it. Chatting with Kana while they're "mind-controlling" each other for the sake of hugely increased bandwidth? Trivial, basically no harder than regular talking. Firing an 'Open Heart' beam? It's an effort, about on par with lifting a heavy backpack. Spamming it? That's basically weightlifting in the gym.
... pushing herself to perform a feat slightly outside everything she's ever done before? Now you're running on willpower, and it'll exhaust her. I should note, Amu already did that while healing Saaya just now. If you want to do it again, you can, but the outcome is going to be people-other-than-Amu handling the situation while Amu gets a well deserved nap.
-push past that, which is possible if she wants it badly enough, and you're going to cause mental damage.
