Pokemon must be weakened or the catch rate is crap
Subsumption (PMMM Faux-Quest) (Witch MC)
quick balls, m80
Shitposting aside, Ashtaroth might want to consider going back and clearing out the remainder of Saar's familiars at some point. Free food is free food, after all.
From now on Sayaka's Dialog is replaced with Pokemon Talk (Saya Sayaka Saya Saya) in my Head.
Too Bad she can't evolve anymore.
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
I think Ashy prefers having someone she can talk to.
Confrontation 14: The Cheese is a Lie
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
> Use an illusion to distract the familiars while retreating towards the ceiling, then rain shatterwords down from above.
You split off from Sayaka, quickly moving down another bridge branching off to the left. As the familiars reach the fork in the path, you start throwing shatterwords at the mouth of Sayaka's side. The steady stream of breaking runes proves a sufficient deterrent for the swarm, forcing the familiars to funnel your way instead.
Good, they're after you now. That should make this a lot easier.
You float off the side of the bridge, heading towards the ceiling while firing off more shatterwords into the center of the charging mass. Some of the nurses pull out large clipboards that somehow manage to shield them to some extent, but the flying shrapnel still rips through a huge chunk of the clustered familiars with ease… just as the Pyotr in the nearby pit figure out how to jump to the bridge. They immediately start scampering over to join their comrades, and the swarm's numbers quickly begin ticking up again. Annoying, but you suppose more mice shouldn't matter too much in the long run.
You stop at the edge of the localized darkness hiding the top of the cavern from view. There's a scattering of candy and weird, humanoid effigy things suspended from near-invisible strings up here, as well as some twisting banners just a little higher up, but for the most part you've got nearly free rein to move. Excellent — the familiars most likely can't reach you up here, so you should be able to do this next bit completely unimpeded.
You imagine a giant platter, heaped to the point of falling over with triangular wedges and wheels of cheese. Taking a moment to fix that image in your mind, you cast your illusion, and about a dozen iterations of that very platter suddenly pop into existence, placed at various spots across the length of the bridge below.
You sway in a place, a bit staggered from the sudden loss of magic. Even as relatively small as that illusion was, that seriously drained you… still, if this stuff is as important to the familiars as Novella implied, it should be worth it. You're more trying to buy time here than win outright after all, so a distraction is probably the best way to go about this.
You look down to see how well it's working, and…
The familiars are ignoring your illusions. Completely, utterly ignoring them. Neither the Pyotr nor the nurses seem to care about the cheese in the slightest. Huh? Why?! Even if it isn't real, Novella said that they-
You'd smack yourself in the face if you still had one. Novella also said that the Pyotr are BLIND. A factoid that you read, noted, and then apparently promptly forgot. The nurses might even be too, since they have the exact same kind of head. If that's true, then of course none of them are reacting to it; you doubt your illusion smells like anything-
Something small and thin whizzes through the air to your right. You twist to see a large needle puncture the wall behind you, then twist back around to look down at the nurse holding the giant syringe that presumably fired it.
As if that was their cue, the other remaining nurses form similar weapons and begin firing them up at you as well. You angle Tome forward to deflect the relatively tiny projectiles, but a few still manage to hit you before you can shield yourself, piercing through your ribbons in several different places. They tear right through the flimsy fabric, but while the impacts sting — kind of like actual shots, come to think of it — the attack doesn't really do much beyond make you wish your arms were a little more durable.
Okay, so your plan had a rather glaring error in it, and the familiars seem to have a long range attack after all. Thankfully, it still doesn't seem as though they can truly hurt you, at least not up here. Sayaka should have all the time she needs to fix herself before getting back into the thick of it. You have it under-
Another needle flies by you, but you look to the side this time when you notice it trailing something long and thin in its wake.
It's… more stitching string?
The projectile penetrates the cake-like surface of the wall behind you, the metal's length all but burying itself within it. Down below, the nurse holding the other end of the string quickly affixes it to the bridge's railing, and a steady stream of Pyotr begin rapidly scurrying up it. Wow, really? How are they this well-coordinated?
You scoot to one side and bring your ribbons down on the reverse zipline. Though surprisingly well anchored, the needle loosens and falls out of the wall after a couple of forceful hits, causing the Pyotr that were climbing the cable to immediately plummet into the pit below... but even as they do, two more needles trailing string are shot up to replace the one you just sent down. Alright seriously, what IS this? It's like the familiars are laying siege to you!
You take down several more of the trapeze-like lines, tossing your remaining shatterwords down at the bridge as you go to try and cut down on the rate of fire, but either more nurses have been coming in from somewhere or they're much better at dodging than you thought, because it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. The number of cords continues to increase as well, the Pyotr getting closer and closer to you as you struggle to keep up, until finally you conclude that this is likely a hopeless task, and just start floating towards the other side of the pit to get away from them. You just need a minute to get some more ammunition made and grown-
A bunch of metal beds suddenly emerge from the gloom above, dropping out of seemingly nowhere directly into your flight path. You swerve to avoid them, only noticing after you've already done so that they're falling in slow motion for some reason, and so likely wouldn't have hurt at all. Something still somehow lands on you however, the impact light, but more than substantial enough to notice.
You look down to find a Pyotr turtling on its back atop Tome's open pages, legs kicking at the air in an attempt to right itself. Slightly grossed out, for all that you know it's not a real mouse, you quickly smack it off of you... but apparently, your evasive swerve brought you a bit too close to one of the strings, as several more of the rodent-like familiars fall on you less than half a second later. This seems to only spur the rest of them into action, and suddenly giant mice are literally raining down on you from above, even as you hurriedly attempt to maneuver out of the way. Many of the Pyotr fail to find their footing once they land, and end up dropping off you nigh-immediately, but there's so many of them that it might as well not matter — by the time you manage to float back out of dive-bombing range, you've still picked up at least three dozen stragglers.
You'd find the current state of affairs almost laughable, if not for the fact that the Pyotr all seem to have small claws on their feet — something you only realizeonce they all start either scrabbling at the top page of Tome, or trying to climb up your stalk like it's a giant piece of exercise equipment. It feels a bit like having a bunch of tiny thorns scraped across your lower body, while a bunch of tiny cats simultaneously attempt to scale your torso, and is overall quite unpleasant. You swipe at the Pyotr with your ribbons and jerk from side to side, trying to shake them off, but now that they've got a grip on you they're proving annoyingly persistent.
…alright. Plan B then.
[-] Plan B. [Write in]
> ...but leave at least a few for Sayaka to deal with so she doesn't end up feeling totally useless.
You split off from Sayaka, quickly moving down another bridge branching off to the left. As the familiars reach the fork in the path, you start throwing shatterwords at the mouth of Sayaka's side. The steady stream of breaking runes proves a sufficient deterrent for the swarm, forcing the familiars to funnel your way instead.
Good, they're after you now. That should make this a lot easier.
You float off the side of the bridge, heading towards the ceiling while firing off more shatterwords into the center of the charging mass. Some of the nurses pull out large clipboards that somehow manage to shield them to some extent, but the flying shrapnel still rips through a huge chunk of the clustered familiars with ease… just as the Pyotr in the nearby pit figure out how to jump to the bridge. They immediately start scampering over to join their comrades, and the swarm's numbers quickly begin ticking up again. Annoying, but you suppose more mice shouldn't matter too much in the long run.
You stop at the edge of the localized darkness hiding the top of the cavern from view. There's a scattering of candy and weird, humanoid effigy things suspended from near-invisible strings up here, as well as some twisting banners just a little higher up, but for the most part you've got nearly free rein to move. Excellent — the familiars most likely can't reach you up here, so you should be able to do this next bit completely unimpeded.
You imagine a giant platter, heaped to the point of falling over with triangular wedges and wheels of cheese. Taking a moment to fix that image in your mind, you cast your illusion, and about a dozen iterations of that very platter suddenly pop into existence, placed at various spots across the length of the bridge below.
You sway in a place, a bit staggered from the sudden loss of magic. Even as relatively small as that illusion was, that seriously drained you… still, if this stuff is as important to the familiars as Novella implied, it should be worth it. You're more trying to buy time here than win outright after all, so a distraction is probably the best way to go about this.
You look down to see how well it's working, and…
The familiars are ignoring your illusions. Completely, utterly ignoring them. Neither the Pyotr nor the nurses seem to care about the cheese in the slightest. Huh? Why?! Even if it isn't real, Novella said that they-
You'd smack yourself in the face if you still had one. Novella also said that the Pyotr are BLIND. A factoid that you read, noted, and then apparently promptly forgot. The nurses might even be too, since they have the exact same kind of head. If that's true, then of course none of them are reacting to it; you doubt your illusion smells like anything-
Something small and thin whizzes through the air to your right. You twist to see a large needle puncture the wall behind you, then twist back around to look down at the nurse holding the giant syringe that presumably fired it.
As if that was their cue, the other remaining nurses form similar weapons and begin firing them up at you as well. You angle Tome forward to deflect the relatively tiny projectiles, but a few still manage to hit you before you can shield yourself, piercing through your ribbons in several different places. They tear right through the flimsy fabric, but while the impacts sting — kind of like actual shots, come to think of it — the attack doesn't really do much beyond make you wish your arms were a little more durable.
Okay, so your plan had a rather glaring error in it, and the familiars seem to have a long range attack after all. Thankfully, it still doesn't seem as though they can truly hurt you, at least not up here. Sayaka should have all the time she needs to fix herself before getting back into the thick of it. You have it under-
Another needle flies by you, but you look to the side this time when you notice it trailing something long and thin in its wake.
It's… more stitching string?
The projectile penetrates the cake-like surface of the wall behind you, the metal's length all but burying itself within it. Down below, the nurse holding the other end of the string quickly affixes it to the bridge's railing, and a steady stream of Pyotr begin rapidly scurrying up it. Wow, really? How are they this well-coordinated?
You scoot to one side and bring your ribbons down on the reverse zipline. Though surprisingly well anchored, the needle loosens and falls out of the wall after a couple of forceful hits, causing the Pyotr that were climbing the cable to immediately plummet into the pit below... but even as they do, two more needles trailing string are shot up to replace the one you just sent down. Alright seriously, what IS this? It's like the familiars are laying siege to you!
You take down several more of the trapeze-like lines, tossing your remaining shatterwords down at the bridge as you go to try and cut down on the rate of fire, but either more nurses have been coming in from somewhere or they're much better at dodging than you thought, because it doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. The number of cords continues to increase as well, the Pyotr getting closer and closer to you as you struggle to keep up, until finally you conclude that this is likely a hopeless task, and just start floating towards the other side of the pit to get away from them. You just need a minute to get some more ammunition made and grown-
A bunch of metal beds suddenly emerge from the gloom above, dropping out of seemingly nowhere directly into your flight path. You swerve to avoid them, only noticing after you've already done so that they're falling in slow motion for some reason, and so likely wouldn't have hurt at all. Something still somehow lands on you however, the impact light, but more than substantial enough to notice.
You look down to find a Pyotr turtling on its back atop Tome's open pages, legs kicking at the air in an attempt to right itself. Slightly grossed out, for all that you know it's not a real mouse, you quickly smack it off of you... but apparently, your evasive swerve brought you a bit too close to one of the strings, as several more of the rodent-like familiars fall on you less than half a second later. This seems to only spur the rest of them into action, and suddenly giant mice are literally raining down on you from above, even as you hurriedly attempt to maneuver out of the way. Many of the Pyotr fail to find their footing once they land, and end up dropping off you nigh-immediately, but there's so many of them that it might as well not matter — by the time you manage to float back out of dive-bombing range, you've still picked up at least three dozen stragglers.
You'd find the current state of affairs almost laughable, if not for the fact that the Pyotr all seem to have small claws on their feet — something you only realizeonce they all start either scrabbling at the top page of Tome, or trying to climb up your stalk like it's a giant piece of exercise equipment. It feels a bit like having a bunch of tiny thorns scraped across your lower body, while a bunch of tiny cats simultaneously attempt to scale your torso, and is overall quite unpleasant. You swipe at the Pyotr with your ribbons and jerk from side to side, trying to shake them off, but now that they've got a grip on you they're proving annoyingly persistent.
…alright. Plan B then.
[-] Plan B. [Write in]
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The cheese is a lie?
Preposterous, i have it right here!
Anyway:
[X] Spin around and try to dislodge them that way. If that fails, stop, drop and roll. Or flop like a fish, whatever works.
--[X] You should remember getting a broom for situations like this. Witches gotta have brooms....it would certainly make swatting these pests easier.
Preposterous, i have it right here!
Anyway:
[X] Spin around and try to dislodge them that way. If that fails, stop, drop and roll. Or flop like a fish, whatever works.
--[X] You should remember getting a broom for situations like this. Witches gotta have brooms....it would certainly make swatting these pests easier.
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Powerofmind
In Madness Fallen
- Location
- United States
[X] Do a barrel roll.
Metroidwave
Strength To Lean On
- Location
- Somewhere in Colorado
[X] Book it
...I'm sorry. The pun wouldn't let do otherwise.
...I'm sorry. The pun wouldn't let do otherwise.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Wow that was an awful plan. We're really going to need Sayaka back.
[X] Pelt yourself with Shatterwords. You know they won't hurt Tome and the familiars might not expect it.
[X] Check how Sayaka is doing on the healing front.
-[X] If she's back in fighting shape move towards her. This is starting to feel like a two person problem.
-[X] If not, just keep the familiars distracted and off yourself.
[X] Pelt yourself with Shatterwords. You know they won't hurt Tome and the familiars might not expect it.
[X] Check how Sayaka is doing on the healing front.
-[X] If she's back in fighting shape move towards her. This is starting to feel like a two person problem.
-[X] If not, just keep the familiars distracted and off yourself.
With this update, we've hit an important milestone for story revisions: the word count has hit 62k, equaling the value from the previous thread (up to the limited precision of the word count display, and counting author's notes and other non-story text in story threadmark posts). Most rewrites don't get anywhere near this point. Congrats!
(Given the plot divergence, it's hard to say whether the new version has reached an equivalent level of plot development as the original, but I feel like it's not quite at that point yet.)
(Given the plot divergence, it's hard to say whether the new version has reached an equivalent level of plot development as the original, but I feel like it's not quite at that point yet.)
hillo315
Intact but Tactless
- Location
- Somewhere. Somewhere else.
You combined the votes. Noice!
They rely on smell. Dang. Charlotte has eyes, though. We might get the chance to use the illusion trick here.
However, Ashy technically did distract the familiars away from Sayaka...
Ashy is a Kaiju in Candyland. She is literally towering over the familiars, and they are laying siege.
Useless ribbon arms! They make great bookmarks, but a strong grip is impossible!
I approve the title. It's too good to not use.
I made Plans B, C, D, and E.
[X] Plan B: Reach down with Novella to subsume as many familiars as possible.
[X] Plan C: Grab a big sweet to distract the familiars. Hopefully it smells good enough to grab their attention...
[X] If you can't distract them, swing or toss the sweet at the familiars in an effort to squish them. This is what it means to use the carrot instead of the stick.
[X] Plan D: Retreat into Tome. Then slam Tome closed to crush the familiars betwixt its pages. Finally, slam Tome on the ground to catch familiars underneath.[X] Plan E: Your Highness assigns
EDIT: Added a new Plan D. The old Plan D is now Plan E.
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Ottriman
Quest Junkie
- Location
- Reykjavík, Iceland
[X] Pelt yourself with Shatterwords. You know they won't hurt Tome and the familiars might not expect it.
[X] Check how Sayaka is doing on the healing front.
-[X] If she's back in fighting shape move towards her. This is starting to feel like a two person problem.
-[X] If not, just keep the familiars distracted and off yourself.
[X] Check how Sayaka is doing on the healing front.
-[X] If she's back in fighting shape move towards her. This is starting to feel like a two person problem.
-[X] If not, just keep the familiars distracted and off yourself.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
Worth noting that compared to Saar's, these familiars are highly coordinated. The Faas pretty much just flew at Ash, and the best they knew to do way a bit of jukeing and swarm tactics, very basic ones. The Brandy never showed up, and in fact we've yet to see them at all. These guys? The Pyotr are much like the Faas, but are blind and can't fly, but the nurses managed to cost Sayaka an eye. It was in no small part weight of numbers, but that's more then most familiars ever manage. And throwing the needles and using them as grappling hooks for the Pyotr? Multistage planning abilities, these things are smart and strong. Shockingly dangerous for familiars.
... Huh, now that I think on it, how did the Nurse things even know were Ash was? Ash seems to think they're blind, having the same target heads as the Pyotr and ignoring the illusion supports this, but Ash has been floating midair this entire fight over a huge chasm. She doesn't make any noise far as we're heard, and she's not in contact with the ground so they can't detect vibrations that way. How did they know where to throw the needles? Do they just sense magic or something?
... Huh, now that I think on it, how did the Nurse things even know were Ash was? Ash seems to think they're blind, having the same target heads as the Pyotr and ignoring the illusion supports this, but Ash has been floating midair this entire fight over a huge chasm. She doesn't make any noise far as we're heard, and she's not in contact with the ground so they can't detect vibrations that way. How did they know where to throw the needles? Do they just sense magic or something?
Look's like the Illusions are going to stay expensive. Maybe if Ashy subsumes the right Magical Girl...
The coordinated Familiars and the Fact that the Barrier itself now spawns Obstacles means Charlotte is probably paying Attention.
If she is organizing all this, then she is probably close by and it could all stop if Sayaka finds her.
Or Ashy uses Tearful Storm or the ??? Ability and accidentally's her.
Soooo Plans,
Maybe
[X] Turn yourself Upside Down and try to shake them off.
Or maybe
[X] Retreat back into Tome and try to squash them, or use Shatter Words to kill them.
Or we could try to subsume them. It's only a few dozen and Subsumption uses a Vortex.
Ashy, the Vacuum Cleaner Witch?
Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
Kyoko?
Odd simile to use for mice.
hillo315
Intact but Tactless
- Location
- Somewhere. Somewhere else.
This could work, especially if Kyoko can apply her illusions on a large scale. Ashy's illusions are supposed to be aesthetically pleasing, but Kyoko's illusions are meant to actually fool people.
The familiars all have the same goals, so some coordination isn't unusual. As for the intelligent siege tactics, it's possible that the Polinas are commanding the Pyotr. The "SUDDENLY, OBSTACLES!" does seem suspicious, though.
If Charlotte is paying attention, she finally hatched. All the magic and fighting must have disturbed the grief seed enough to finish the job.
Based on what little I know of witch magic, I'm guessing the barrier may not always do exactly what the witch wants... but it definitely responds to the witch's emotions. If Charlotte is feeling threatened by Ashy, it makes sense that the labyrinth spat out extra defenses. Possibly like how Shemesh somehow knew to rescue Ashy from Sayaka just in time.
Maybe, maybe not. Charlotte should be able to feel her domain to some extent.
According to Ashy's character sheet history, the unknown ability was available once Sayaka was nommed, so it's probably a Sayaka skill. I'm guessing that it's either the cutlass storm or the wheels of fate. Or maybe something sound-based?
I highly discourage this. If Ashy even can turn upside-down, would she be able to maintain her balance?
This sounds like a good idea. I'll be stealing it, thanks.
Nottheunmaker
Altman be praised
- Location
- USG Ishimura
We already know it doesn't work like that. Ash got no new spells from subsuming Sayaka, just the Gem's Abilities and her magic storage. She only has access to Sayaka's magic through Sayaka. If she subsumed Kyoko, she'd have to convince her to help with the illusions. Not that it could work anyway, as Kyoko can't use her illusions anymore.
Ah, well, magic's probably more efficient anyway. Just have to find the right magical girl or witch and get them to produce cheese. By the megaton, if we're to fulfill hillo's stated goal of filling Charlotte's labyrinth.
Profile Page>Find All Threads by Flairina. Each one, View All Threadmarks, copy down dates & wordcounts, then let Mathematica at it. Not a lot of work. In fact, here, have a graph. Black is Subsumption, light brown is Stand-In, green* is No-Leaf Clover, and that one red dot is the recent update to To Twist the Crimson Threads. Data starts with the first chapter of Stand-In, and does not include this most recent update....I cannot believe you took the time to work all of that out.I should still be writing faster regardless of all that but thank you for the reassurance!
*I know, but magenta was too close to the light brown.
I definitely overreached in saying "most people"; I believed that, but I did not have strong reasons to do so. Moreover, a quick google indicates that it is likely not true. Apologies for my overconfidence. EDIT: And thanks for prompting me to learn better. (Or not? Certainly, thanks here isn't socially inappropriate, but does the situation meet my stricter criteria for gratitude? …yes, I believe it does. Thanks.)
There's a difference between voluntary and involuntary creepiness. Ashtaroth can't help being a giant soul-eating monster, but she doesn't have to do spooky voices on top of that.
How many of them even know what a Riemannian manifold is, much less why I'd be worried about the completeness thereof?
Maybe I should just accept "but that didn't happen" as the answer to what-ifs. It's not like counterfactual definiteness is necessary for a sensible physical theory. (Not that this is an instance of counterfactual definiteness, but it is somewhat analogous.)
Yes; the reason was clear.
Yes, and I expect she did that. Just, you know… not the first time, and probably not the second, either.
True. It doesn't feel right for a fakeout, but I've been wrong before.hillo315 said:
Ah. Well, the good news is that there's only a few kilograms of that around, so it'll be a lot easier to acquire all of it.Nah. Charlotte deserves only the best cheese! Mami head cheese. Her favorite.
Parts of Ashtaroth: Tome, stalk, arms, Novella, galaxy. The stalk has grown, but only from the bottom. Her arms have grown and freed themselves from Tome, but otherwise remained them same. Novella has had entries added. And the galaxy has grown larger. When she ate Sayaka, she briefly gained "pointy growths … like tree branches".
I do not think she will ever "get all of her body out of Tome"—would it make sense for there to be a specific finite number of souls that she must eat, to be released/complete? It could be the case, but it always feels wrong to me when there's some number that pops up and no reason for it to be what it is, and I can't think of a good reason for this number to be anything. Likewise, I do not trust the pattern of growth to continue: consider what happens after Ashtaroth has eaten a hundred witches. Is she a thousand-foot-tall beanstalk monster with waving branches and a "head" of swirling lines the size of several city blocks, coming out of a relatively tiny book? Would that preserve her aesthetic?
So if it doesn't stop, and it doesn't continue linearly, maybe it slows, or she grows in other ways, or she gets more control of the process, or something else.
Is it plant-like, specifically, or is she simply being extruded? It may also be worthwhile to note that while Ashtaroth seems to grow from Tome, she subsumes things using Novella.That said, Ashy's growth is also seemingly plantlike. Tome is probably the seed and/or roots...
Blank, as far as we know, but Ashtaroth hasn't tried to look at any pages other than the ones she grows from (we haven't been explicitly told that they're blank, but I'm pretty sure we would have gotten a description of their contents if they weren't, and I don't recall any).
And captive food is captive food. But they're Ashtaroth's familiars now, so who knows if they'd give even the tiny amount of magic the Pyotr did?
This also brings up a question: is it possible to depopulate Saar's barrier? I'd expect not while she was alive, as new familiars would be created to replace dead ones, but now…
Of. Other fixes possible.Confrontation 14: The Cheese is a Lie said:
Tempting fate like this? She deserves what's coming.
Free rein.
"Do this next bit" or "continue".
Well, not yet, but once she stops calling you evil she might.
If they're blind, how are they aiming?
It took me a second to realize she meant injections, not gunshots.
Probably magic.
A misallocation of firepower, I think. One hit on a line should be enough to cut it, and while they may be too small to aim at easily, the shrapnel from a hit on one of the climbing Pyotr may also do the trick. Some suppressive fire is fine, but maybe throw some shatterwords at the climbers, too?
(Also, trapeze-like? How so?)
I'm not sure "straggler" is the right word, though apparently it has uses I was previously unaware of which may fit. Also, yikes. I previously estimated the entire horde at 60–70 familiars, but even if there were twice that many, to have 36 be just a fraction of the climbers is a significant increase. Particularly as reinforcements are ongoing.
I see someone has
I wonder what Sayaka's doing. Trying to heal, certainly, but other than that—would she even try to kill the familiars swarming us, or would she go after Charlotte while they're distracted? Or try to kill Ashtaroth while she's distracted? Has she figured out healing yet?
I'm seeing parallels to the previous Bad End. Beset by on all sides by familiars, unable to keep track of the battle, shatterwords not doing enough fast enough, and flight insufficient for extraction. No heavy hitters around, though, unless you count Sayaka.
There's only a few ways we can deal with the horde of familiars, given the nurses' ranged weapons and adaptability. We can fly away, but they can follow; I don't think we can break the bridge in a reasonable timeframe; they're getting reinforcements too quickly to just kill them with shatterwords. So, Tearful Storm. As for the Pyotr on us, we can repurpose a tactic we considered previously. After all, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end—and Ashtaroth can just halt.
[x] Retract into Tome, and let yourself fall.
-[x] After falling about twenty meters, stop.
-[x] Survivors get shatterwords.
[x] Use Tearful Storm.
[x] Try to stop the flow of Pyotr from the pit.
[x] Check on Sayaka. Has she figured out how to heal herself yet? Has she done something reckless again?
(It's also possible we'll see the mystery ability used here.)
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hillo315
Intact but Tactless
- Location
- Somewhere. Somewhere else.
But if she doesn't know when she's being creepy, she can't deliberately be less creepy. So whenever she's being creepy, someone needs to be creeped out and tell her she's being creepy.
If finite, there isn't a specific number of souls. In addition to quantity, there is also quality. More magical potential means more growth.
Or at least that's how I think it works. It's what makes the most sense to me.
But if Ashy even has a final form, I doubt she would fully separate from Tome. At best, she would free all of her body parts, but would remain attached to Tome in some fashion.
Or at least that's how I think it works. It's what makes the most sense to me.
It's possible that Ashy can continue to assimilate souls after unlocking her final form and ceasing growth, for the same reason that we assume Walpurgisnacht can do the same.
It's also possible that certain body parts will grow and extend more than others, or only after other parts grow. Perhaps Tome will only grow after the rest of the body gets as big as it can possibly get.
On the other hand, I don't see why Ashy can't be significantly larger than Tome. She could grow outward as well as upward, appearing more fearsome and reducing Tome to an Achilles' Heel. Neat.
Tome is the roots/seed and Novella is the leaves. Both are necessary for Ashy's continued survival and growth.
Don't take the analogy any further than that. I don't know if the similarity is even intentional.
I'm guessing that Ashy is the sum of Tome's contents. If that's the case, Tome is blank because Ashy is sticking out of it.
Presumably smell. Or just magic.
It's hard to safely navigate to the witch while hostile familiars are flooding the path, and Sayaka's wellbeing may or may not depend on Ashy surviving siege warfare.
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She is one Possibility, but we know there are Non-Canon Magical Girls around like Tira so some others showing up is possible.
Magical Girls with Illusion Magic like Kyoko or with Territory Magic like Kaede Akino (could be useful if it can make something like the Center of Ashy's Barrier).
The Problem is that the Polinas should be blind too.
They could be sensing Ashy's Magic but the only Way to do that, that we have seen so far, are Soul Gems and even then more of a Detection Style than something that can be used to target something/one. Neither Sayaka nor Ashy could sens each other during their Fight inside the Fog Illusion.
So if they need Eyes to aim, then the only one around on their Side with them is Charlotte.
I think the Beds were I bid to well aimed for it to be something unconscious.
What Shemesh did could simply be part of his Nature. Every Familiar get's some Skill or Ability, maybe his is playing the big damn Hero or pulling a Batman?
It doesn't work like that for Ashy and the only other Barrier that we have seen so far, Saar's, didn't either or Ashy would have been swarmed by Familiars.
Self-healing maybe? It's not like Ashy got in any Situation she would have needed it yet, unlike with Tearful Storm.
We did get a ??? Skill from Sayaka.
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Well, I'm glad you're back! I know the beginning was a bit slow; at some point I may go back and edit it to be a little less dry in places. Hopefully you'll find future developments interesting enough to keep you around this time.
Yeah, but the Faas are plants. Floating salads, basically. Who'd sign up for those? XP
The cheese is a lie?
Preposterous, i have it right here!
Eh, close enough. Probably even better, actually!
Ooh, good catch! And we're coming up on the anniversary too... wow, I need to speed the heck up. I only wrote 16 updates for this since running out the buffer? Granted they were much longer updates than we started out with but still. I just finished another witch illustration too, which I'm kind of anxious to show off because I even went and animated this one, but at this rate it'll take forever to get to her. I need to install a turbo function.
Gotta have SOME useful familiars around to make up for the Pyotr being so terrible at their jobs. I wouldn't take Ashtaroth thinking the Polina might be blind as gospel though. Plenty of familiars don't even have faces, but still manage to get around just fine. The only reason it's notable with the Pyotr is because Novella mentioned as much, and in the end it might not actually have anything to do with their lack of eyes.
Fixes applied. Thank you.
I'm basing the number of Pyotr here off of the number we see when Mami fights them, which is... uh...
...yeah, we're not even seeing most of the pit here.
I'm actually not certain; do we have any evidence Walpurgisnacht has continued to grow in strength throughout history? Or did she possibly just form that strong to begin with? There's the magical girl shades, but those could just be based on the girls whose witches ended up creating her, and you'd think that if she started out weaker someone would have taken care of her before canon came along.
They didn't really have to be well aimed honestly- sometimes that section of the barrier just seems to rain down random objects from elsewhere in the barrier for no reason. We see both pills and beds do that in episode 3, and little glowing balls of light even rain UP at one point. It's weird, as most barriers are.
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hillo315
Intact but Tactless
- Location
- Somewhere. Somewhere else.
Really? Wow, that is definitely not what I thought they look like. Maybe I missed the part where their appearance is described.
Word of God confirms that Walpurgisnacht was originally just a single witch, and became powerful by assimilating other witches afterward. Witches are known to eat each other, but assimilating witches the way Walpurgisnacht does seems to be a special ability of some sort.
This is just a hunch, but I think Walpurgisnacht can lose gathered souls by taking clothing damage and deploying familiars, and must assimilate more witches to stay in peak condition for combat. It's like how a hurricane loses water over time. She has the collective power of many witches, but she doesn't seem to retain all of their unique abilities. She just sort of... mingles with other witches and brings them along for the ride instead of truly subsuming them.
Also, Walpurgisnacht has been alive and infamous for centuries. I don't know if she became any more powerful during most of that time, because all I know is that she was able wreck entire cities even then.
Flairina
Least Omnipotent Goddess
- Location
- The next infinity over
Well, they don't really LOOK like plants; they're little green hands with metal fan blades where the wrist would be that they use to propel themselves around, but they're still technically plant matter. In as much as that matters for familiars, which aren't actually composed of any sort of physical substance at all when you think about it.
Also, I've swapped where "Faux-Quest" and "Witch MC" were in the title. Why did it take me a year to realize those would both make more sense in each other's places?
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Crusader Jerome
Subsisting on Supplication
- Location
- My home away from Rome
I would. Vegetables are delicious.