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The Lands of the River - A Bronze Souls Quest

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hm...plan revised then! If the arena is just getting smaller then rolling with it and making it a lot smaller will be fun.
 
[X] Cast Star's Call
[X] Move forward and get ready to dodge his scales if he uses them.

Just dodge it.
 
[x] Move forward and get ready to dodge his scales if he uses them.
[x] Reinforce movement?
 
Time to roll
Aliya threw 2 100-faced dice. Reason: incantation and movement Total: 115
28 28 87 87
 
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0-14.9: One Last Effort
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Cast Star's Call.​
    [X] Move forward and get ready to dodge his scales if he uses them.​

    You spring forward, jabbing with your staff and sending a glittering star to burst upon The Tax Collector's brow. A hound locks its jaws around his calf, which crumbles to dust between its crackling teeth. Arrows bite the dirt. The roar of rushing grain fills your ears as the stolen wealth of the delta inundates the courtyard. You dive forward, seeking the opening you can perceive, just inches - instants - away—

    A hurtling bronze bowl strikes you on the right side of your head and sweeps you along with it, tumbling, rolling. You will your bones not to break. You lose sensation on your right side. Foresight flickers as your mind gropes for a future that continues.

    Resolve
    ╞══════════════════╡3/20
    Stormhounds of Suteshet
    ╞════╡4/6 ╞════╡6/6    ​
    The Tax Collector
    ╞══════════════════════════════════════╡​

    You are lying prone on the scarred earth. In the grey moonlight, grains of barley drift across the dirt before your eyes, and dust sleets down across your vision. The flesh on the shaven side of your scalp is cracking and crumbling away. A paw enters your vision; one of the hounds has taken a stance between you and death, growling, hackles raised. Suteshet's servant asserts her claim.

    This doesn't feel like your body anymore, this broken and misshapen semblance of you. How can you persist like this?

    But you've done this before. You can do it one more time. You claw the ground with withering hands, try to get to your feet.

    You raise your gaze and visions of truncated futures waver before you. The Tax Collector, his body crumbling beneath the shrouding papyrus just as badly as your own, takes a long step back and winds up the final blow that will crush your broken body and the defiant hounds alike. Despite his disintegrating flesh, the golden fires in his eyes still glow bright.

    In a dozen futures, you strike out. In only one of them does your blow have the strength to end it alone. But you are not alone, even now. Even without that one perfect stroke, you might yet triumph.

    What do you do? You are Staggered, and have a -10 to all rolls you make this round. Consider carefully.
    [ ] Try to make one perfect shot with a Crescent Moonbow. One perfect shot could end this, but anything less will fail. (You need a Full Hit; a Partial would cost more Resolve than you have, and thus would fizzle.)
    [ ] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)
    [ ] You are too vulnerable; focus all your efforts on avoiding this blow, and hope to buy time for the hounds. If you perish, they will scatter to the winds too. (You take a full defence action, gaining +30 to your dodge, for a net +40; +10 for Light load, +10 Foresight, +30 full defence, -10 stagger.)
    [ ] Write in.
    You cannot survive any kind of hit at all now; even the lightest glancing hit he could deal will take you to 0. Retreating would heavily penalise your defence as you try to climb/wade through the mounds of grain.

    You're right on the brink here, so I'm having your Foresight work overtime and giving some harder numbers. The boss is on 6 health. You have just enough Resolve for Star's Call to beat out using your dagger here, because none of his attacks can deal less than 3 damage to you, but if you survive another round it may come down to that.

    I can't believe it's come down this close to the wire. I'm going to throw the hounds' attacks open for you folks to roll if you wish; I don't want this to be decided by a die I roll behind the screen.

    It is possible that neither of you will survive this round; as per the Souls tradition, this still counts as beating the boss.
     
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    • IN THE NAME OF THE MOON!
    [X] While the hounds lunge for his throat, cast Star's Call in your fist and uppercut that motherfucker's head off.
    [X] If that and the hounds don't kill him, duck inside his reach.

    I *think* the odds are better on either us landing Star's Call and at least one hound landing a partial, or us whiffing but them doing at least 4 damage collectively, than the odds of us dodging the attack completely or the hounds killing him outright. And plus it's just cooler this way.

    (Doing the math, there's a 32% chance of the Hounds, perfect creatures that they are, killing him all on their own if we only dodge. If we fully dodge all damage, 64% chance, then we're nearly guaranteed to get him next turn, so the chance of neither of those happening (and thus us eating shit) is about 25%. With Star's Call, the only way for us to not kill him is if either we miss and the hounds fail to do at least 4 damage, or if we get at least a partial and they fail to hit at all. If I'm getting things right with brute force math the odds of that happening is about 20%? But you can cut another 9-ish percentage points off that since there's decent 44% chance that we fully dodge the attack even if we fail to kill him. At the very least it should be within the margin of error that it's up to preference, and my preference is doing something cool)
     
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    [X] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)
     
    [X] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)

    This is the surest way to victory available to us, I think. There are more combinations of successes/partials/failures that would result in our victory here than with the Moonbow, and full defense is just stalling, ultimately.

    But speaking of defense, Star's Call would also nullify our penalty on dodge rolls.
     
    [x] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)
     
    [x] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)
     
    [x] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)
     
    [x] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest. (This will not fell him, but will do a guaranteed 2/4/4 damage; even if you Miss, a lucky hit from a hound could do the rest.)
     
    I may not be able to update promptly, chronic pain is really bad, but roll some dice and I'll see what I can do.

    We need incantation and athletics, and you can roll the 2 attacks for the hounds as well if you want.
     
    MissBegot said:
    I may not be able to update promptly, chronic pain is really bad, but roll some dice and I'll see what I can do.

    We need incantation and athletics, and you can roll the 2 attacks for the hounds as well if you want.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    This is an important roll, so I'll only roll incantation and athletics, leaving the hounds to others.

    EDIT: For Christ's sake...
    illhousen threw 2 100-faced dice. Reason: Incantation + Athletics Total: 186
    98 98 88 88
     
    It's in the lap of the gods now. We need two rolls for the Hounds of Suteshet to avenge you; anyone want to take them?
     
    Doggies, lets go.
    Aliya threw 2 100-faced dice. Reason: doggo 1 and doggo 2 Total: 66
    30 30 36 36
     
    0-15: Victory And Death
  • Threadmarks
    • [x] Spend your last strength on Star's Call, and hope the hounds can do the rest.​

    You manage to rise to one knee and raise the staff feebly, the half-moon head catching the light of its rising twin. Muttering words through cracked lips, a dull red star answers your whisper, falling and cracking upon the upraised arm in a shower of dust.

    The scales rise and begin to fall, and you can't find the strength to move aside.

    The hounds open their mouths and howl like the storms over the boundless sands, and leap. One goes directly for the throat, and with a sickening crack, tears away half the giant's neck. For an instant you think you see it holding a blackened vertebra in its teeth, before a desperately-grasping right hand grips and crushes it, its shape dissipating into drifting sand once more.

    The other locks its jaws around the descending hand, tearing loose a finger and snapping the wrist, but it is too late to halt the blow. Your upraised arm is shattered, your staff is broken. You slump sideways, half-crushed beneath the heavy bronze.

    The Tax Collector falls to his knees, head slumped onto one shoulder, the fires in his eyes dimming. A wind rises, blowing away the dust of you and your enemy alike as you fade. The remaining hound lies down, watching you both solemnly, and then the windblown dust obscures it for a second and it is gone.

    The Tax Collector speaks, one last time, a hollow whisper from a lipless mouth.

    "Who were you, Moonseeker? Who was I? I only remember… duty. Failed…"

    The fires go out. But the light remains, though the shadows shift, and it takes you long, slow seconds to realise that it issues from your own eyes.

    You don't really have the strength to wonder about that. You manage to half-raise yourself on a remaining elbow, looking into dark sockets, empty yet still watching you. The wind rises.

    Will you answer him?
    [ ] Yes: Write in a sentence or an intent. You can manage maybe a dozen words.
    [ ] No. You are too tired.​
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Yes: Write in a sentence or an intent. You can manage maybe a dozen words.

    "Don't remember... But I have... A duty..."
     
    Alright, mutual kill is fun! Now we don't need to worry about any enemies waiting at the exit! We'd probably get delivered right to Rekhet, which is convenient.

    [X] Yes: Write in a sentence or an intent. You can manage maybe a dozen words.

    "Past... gone. Duty remains. Rekhet. For her, I will fix the world."

    12 words exactly. If we're gonna simp, may as well get an early start.
     
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