radio414

triangle strategy book i asked for socks pen with my name on it wooden puzzles candy gave out reading material mostly. dad got some books, mom wanted a story i'd written, and sister got some outdoorsy supplies.

Bosses Hang, Pt. I The Fates didn’t wait for an answer. They moved as one, each grabbing at the wrist of the hero they wanted to spend their favor on and guiding them towards their assigned section of Echo Park. It was a wordless process. Had they arranged this beforehand? Or was it something that came up often enough that they already knew? In any case, each Fate had already been in front of their intended target. Clotho grew frustrated with Override’s suit of armor weighing him down and making it impossible for her to drag, so she settled on simply walking backward ahead of him with a beckoning hand gesture. Echo Park was just two paths, and Clotho had taken her charge further down the main one, following the creek to a small bridge, across which was a picnic table and stairs leading up to houses of those who were fortunate enough to have a whole park as basically their backyard. One such person came down the stairs with a dog on a leash. Clotho waved at them with a smile, one that the person returned before moving on, away from the other capes in the park. “You can sit if you want,” Clotho said, gesturing to the picnic table. She remained standing. “I will say up front that part of this favor is contingent on you not recording this or listening to the conversations of my sisters through external means. Obviously, I can’t stop you from relaying our talk through memory alone later, nor can we control your teammates if there’s a particularly loud outburst, but if we find out you stuck a microphone on them or your suit’s got a camera on, well, then you’ll owe us an extra favor, I guess.” She shrugged. “And it’d probably be a favor that didn’t have those moral protections the first two did, so, you know.” She paused, both to give time for Override to disable whatever he needed to and to let her threat linger in the air. “We’re not going to check, though. We’re not going to go looking for it, because what I want to spend my favor on is a matter of trust.” Another pause. Then she said, “Do you think I’m actively plotting to kill you?” Clotho didn’t give Override a chance to answer. “I ask because, well, if that’s your primary motivator for trusting villains, a binary ‘Are they killing me? Yes or no?’ you probably should be a lot more trusting in general, and then you wouldn’t need to be dangling this --” she held up the folder “-- out of reach. And if it’s just an ‘Oh, they’re supervillains’ thing, come on. Like, you’re the one trying to get me to sign something.” An impish grin crept onto her face. “Unless you want me to be trying to kill you,” she said. “I mean, my schedule’s pretty busy what with the world about to end and all, and it obviously won’t be right away, but I can probably slot you in if you want that.” Bosses Hang, Pt. II Atropos took Ember to the other side of the park. There was a wall there that nobody could quite remember the purpose of. It didn’t support anything and it wasn’t even attached to the overpass where the bird mural was. And yet, it had always existed as a part of Echo Park. And it had only gotten thicker over time, as more and more paint between the spray tags and the hackneyed cover jobs Scarlet City occasionally arranged cycled between each other ad infinitum. It was currently in its vandalized state. “Really ought to get Sibyl down here one of these days,” Atropos said, touching the wall, then turning around and leaning up against it. She reached into her pocket, pulled out her butterfly knife, and idly began toying with it as she spoke to Ember. “So, you’re one of the ones that got away, huh? Can’t say I blame you. There’s security in that that a lot of gangs don’t offer. I mean, we do, or try to, anyway, but still. Is that why you left? “No, don’t answer that.” She wasn’t flipping her knife around, just holding one of the handles in each hand and swinging the blade back and forth. Her attention was almost more on that than the actual words coming out of her mouth. “Make no mistake, I’m not trying to get either of us to switch sides here, I’m just trying to get to know the person who owes me another favor a bit more. You know, so you’re less likely to renege on the deal later ‘cause it’s just so tuned to your interests as well as ours or whatever. “Clotho’s definitely going to sign that, by the way. No worries there. My sister can speak for us all just fine. But yeah. If we’re going to be working together either because you owe us or because the world’s going to end otherwise, it’d probably be a good idea to drop all that for a moment and just hang out a bit.” Atropos seemed satisfied with the condition of her knife and went back to swinging it around. “Here is a question you can answer for me,” she said. “The other two, they didn’t really get a choice, I don’t think. But when our participation got priced at six favors, you said yes. I dunno. I think that’s interesting. I might have haggled a little. Why’d you say yes?” Bosses Hang, Pt. III Lachesis took Aeon to the top of the stairs and moved a little bit further down across the overpass to the corner of an intersection, crossing it to the other corner where an ice cream shop awaited them. It was closed, unfortunately (Lachesis pointed out their limited hours sign and said something like “Winter hours and it’s not even Winter yet.”) but the seating was still out and Lachesis scootched into one of the tables and gestured for Aeon to sit across from her. It took a moment for Lachesis to say anything. She looked Aeon up and down a few times first, then, “Freaky.” She looked up from the table. “You’re freaky, you know that? And I don’t mean, like in a bad way or anything. I mean, like, I try to size people up on first meeting them, just questions like height, weight, shoe size, all that good stuff. Age is a big number I like to grab ‘cause I can get it super specific and that catches people off-guard. But looks are a big part of that and, to be blunt, you don’t look that old. I’ve done my homework. I know how old you are - or how old you say you are, anyway - but, you know, dissonance. Freaky.” She settled down into her seat, leaning in to talk to Thessa further. “So, Æon,” -- it was not clear whether her mispronunciation was deliberate or not -- “The Immortal Hero. Keeper of Grudges, apparently. How’s G3 life treating you? I don’t actually know what I’m supposed to say here. I’m tempted to just act like this is a book club and talk about something I’ve read recently you might find interesting. Is that okay? I mean, it’s my favor, so I guess it’s okay. “I’ve been reading this book called All Men are Mortal by Simone de Beauvoir,” Lachesis said. “It’s about this prince of a made-up land called Italy who becomes immortal and decides to use his newfound lifespan to take control of the whole county. He thinks the only reason nobody has done this before is because they die partway through achieving it and progress stalls without their strong hand. But that turns out not to be the case. It turns out you can’t change the system by the rules of the system itself.” She shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s something every immortal fears or just the ones in stories, but you make me think of it.” Lachesis leaned in a little further into the table to the point she was almost lying against it, stretching out her arms to the edges of the thing. “The prince is a bit stupid anyway. Firstly because he gives up after, like, a few hundred years, which is surely nothing to someone who’s doomed to live forever, and second, like, you don’t have to become immortal to make a change in the world. I hope not. It’s tough given what the world is like, but, you know…” She perked back up. “That was a downer. First no ice cream and now all of that. I’m sorry. Hey, you know what?” She pulled a pen and paper out from one of her pockets. “As payback for being a lame-o, if you ever want to dump some nonsense on me, doesn’t have to be G3 work, just whatever you want, give me a call.” She wrote down her number and showed it to Thessa. “You have a good memory, right? Memorize it quick ‘cause it’s about to, uh.” It was a piece of nitrocellulose. Flash paper. Very quickly, the whole thing was in flames, and Lachesis tossed the thing on the ground and stamped the fire out. She looked back at Aeon and made a clicking noise with her mouth and a “call me” sign with her hand. Undoing a Luciferian Towers Dee Moxley didn’t wake up to the alarm on the main gate going off, she woke up to her own. That was the sort of person she was, always on a schedule. She didn’t even register the banging on the door until she rolled off the mattress the Gibbons had provided her when assigning her this station, put her glasses on, and pounded the top of the instant coffee machine to dispense something that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike coffee. She knew it was a tinker’s fault, that the person who had made the machine had had to scale back their design to the point that the machine could only be described charitably as “doing the best it could,” and she forgave the machine itself for its creator’s folly, but she missed the days of being able to leave the house and go down the street for a double shot of espresso. She’d wanted this post. This was the reason she joined Gibbons in the first place, for access to their resources, particularly the land so close to the Shimmer so she could study it without being bothered, but it did have its trade-offs, and that was one of them. Another was the people Gibbons had assigned to be with her. Babs slept through just about anything and lazed through the day despite her power and Güber, well, he was the one who made the coffee machine. At least it woke her up. It woke her up enough, anyway, to know to not respond to Güber’s wailing on the other side of her door. There was no way, without her console at hand, that she’d be able to help him by opening that door. But there were other ways. She tapped the side of her glasses and scrolled through the options that appeared on the lenses, finally selecting a few options that she believed would help the most. First was cameras. She needed to see what was going on, and her glasses flooded her vision with information. Next, obviously, was locking down the room. Whoever was attacking Güber was just on the other side, and though they’d demonstrate the ability to tear the walls of her lab down, now they’d have to try a little bit harder to get to her. Through the cameras, she saw the shimmers of her forcefields envelop the exterior of the room. They were the harder ones. The softer ones, those were the ones on the drones. It was time to wake those up as well. Her laptop was not in the room, an operational security oversight that probably had to be corrected once these particular invaders were repelled. Without that, she could only switch her drones on, off, and through a few basic modes. Two out of the three invaders were still in the warehouse? Maybe the plan was to contain them there until she managed to get Babs up. As for Güber, maybe if he didn’t pull out his “Ray Gun That Makes You Say ‘Ow’ And Nothing Else” at every opportunity he could think of something actually worth trying. She watched him struggle to his feet only to get duffed again and sighed. Alright, maybe not. But there were two more things to do before she had to go play the hero. She switched all the drones on standby in the warehouse to activate and put them on their defensive programming. A softer forcefield and electrical shocks within their range would hopefully be a good enough deterrent, and if it wasn’t… there wasn’t a good answer to that. But she’d think of something. As the drones, those perfect little balls of metal and tinker engineering, rose from the racks and started hovering around the warehouse in search of threats, all Dee had left to do was grab two supplies. The first was a forcefield extruder, a barrier gun that could buy her some time, and the second, meant for Babs personally, was an airhorn. “Anyone else want to come out?” someone said at her bedroom door. Dee readied her extruder, lowered the lockdown field around her room back down, and answered by bursting through. OOC

“See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” -Exodus 23:20 (NIV)It had taken Melissa all this time to get Rei to see things from her point of view, and she wasn’t sure she liked the results. It occured to her that Rei’s “best” could easily be unfathomable to her, that she could just be so overshadowed in every area that she still couldn’t know what to work on. It was like if you were just better at Duel Monsters than someone else. It wasn’t a deck issue, or even a skill issue, it was just… it was just you. There was no overcoming that, not without starting all over again. She’d seen that happen to so, so many other people at Blue Yonder. Could that happen here? No, if Rei was going to try, Melissa reasoned, she had to follow through on her end as well. They were already in the thick of things. Besides, Rei mentioned a “she” that made Melissa think of Mauvache. Was Mauvache watching? The nature of the pods was still a mystery to Melissa, but they were in the center of Mauvache’s domain. If anyone could watch from the outside, it would be her. She also remembered the answer to Rei’s question, since she herself had just asked the same. She’d been chosen. She’d been sent for, just as Rei had, presumably. And Grigoriy had matched them up. Someone else believed in her too. She was already here. Rei had said that also. Her stupid brain wasn’t going to keep her from following through. Not now. Melissa managed to catch Rei flinching and the sound of trees being pulled up from their roots, but wasn’t able to put the pieces together until she turned her head, and by that point, the trees were already well on their way, careening towards each other. She wasn’t going to be able to have Zadkiel fly her away from this one, and having it block or cut away one just left its other side exposed. There was nothing for it, then. It was time to reveal a little bit more of herself. She looked Rei -- who was still hanging from a tree -- square in the eye and jumped. It is not the cherub who catches her this time, but the ophan, her jump giving it enough space to manifest around her so her body is contained within the interlocking rings that make up its. It, not the cherub, is what blocks the trees, taking damage according to the simulation, yes, but taking damage meant for her. The girl can see her opponent through the ophan’s many eyes, and knows she has to take quick action, lest her opponent’s quick reflexes override whatever shock she might have. The ophan fires its beam.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Forty-Three -- The Baron (Part Two) I decided to go back to the Crimson Courtyard basically on a whim. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. Should we actually manage to defeat the Baron, the Courtyard’s corruption meter resets, making the rest of the dungeons that much easier now that we won’t have to deal with them. There’s also the matter of the Crimson Curse. That’ll be gone for the moment too. The biggest disadvantage, meanwhile, is none of the adventurers I’d like to send on this mission have been fully healed. Damian still has a disease I’d rather cure and the stress levels of the party are still rather high overall, especially for an extra-long dungeon that is guaranteed to inflict one stress per tile. But Hakima and Elmer are there for that, I suppose, even if it is random, and this rerun gives me a chance to run back one important feature: Blood. Because we’re absolutely about to turn into a squad of vampires if we push on and play properly. Anyway, let’s take another look at that map just to catch up on where we are. As I’ve said before, we thankfully don’t have to do all that over again. We’re starting in the room to the left of that Yellow lock, which we need a yellow key to open, which we need the blue key to get to. As you can see, it’s one long line down and up to do all this, which is a bit more convenient than what we were doing before, winding around, going all this way around a red door. I imagine it’s easier for people going in blind as well, though I wouldn’t know much about that. Still, on one of our very first fights in this line… Wait, does that mean Elmer Fudd is also a vampire? Because that dog is the one doing most of the attacking, so… Really glad I remembered blood this time, otherwise this would be a pretty big retreat spot and I’d have to bore you with an absolutely poor post. We can continue onwards here, even if Damian’s stress is getting pretty high. Oh, okay. I mean, that was always going to happen if he got targeted enough times. It wasn’t like we were going to high-roll our way out of this one. At the same time, Rapturous is one of the milder afflictions. Its biggest flaw is that it causes Flagellants to attack their allies occasionally, and the affliction buffs his damage output, so it really hurts when he does that. At the same time, though, the affliction buffs his damage output, and Junia’s around to help heal. It’s not hopeless just yet. Okay okay. I have to admit the only reason I had to keep going here was pure stubbornness. The game can’t tell me what to do, right? Also, we’d already fought off the croc guarding the yellow key, so there were a scant few fights left. The Baron himself isn’t that big a deal once you know what you’re doing with him, right? There’s one final enemy to introduce, though, as we approach the Baron’s lair: the Bloodsucker Esquire. These guys are basically the Highwaymen of the bloodsucker world, either using a move called “Ribcracker” to do exactly what it sounds like or setting up a series of ripostes, and it only gets worse when they use The Thirst. I prioritized these ones pretty highly; thankfully all three of the damage dealers hit the back row pretty well. That’s about to become really useful in a moment, too. Okay, so this fight is a gimmick fight. By himself, the Baron has three actions, and most of what he does can easily be countered by a Vestal. His party-wide attack doesn’t do enough damage to overcome her party heal, his single target attack isn’t nearly impactful enough either, and he also has The Thirst, which, like, killing him cures the Crimson Curse, so it’s only annoying if he gets a crit heal. The gimmick, then, is this. See those eggs behind him? At the beginning of the fight and after he loses about a third of his health after that, the Baron hides among these various eggs, and it’s the adventurer’s job to break them open and fight what’s inside. The catch is that as long as these eggs are in play, there’s a special debuff that prevents the use of healing moves. Even Judgement, which is Junia’s primary damage move, is useless here, leaving her with just a stun. This is secretly a good thing, though, if you’re adequately prepared to deal with what’s inside those eggs. They don’t spawn with an initiative roll for the round, which means as soon as you break an egg, you’re free to wail on them as you like. There’s a small element of time pressure here; if the Baron gets too bored he’ll just break all the eggs himself and attack you, but that’s really only a problem if you make it a problem. The bigger problem is if you hatch the Baron early in this cycle and he gets a few turns to wail on you in the meantime. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen, and Junia, despite her new Hopeless demeanor is able to keep everyone alive with not even a death’s door check. He manages to get a Curse on Boudica, but Boudica just returns the favor with the curse of being dead. There’s more to the dungeon if you go looking for it. There’s a spare red key that gives access to a set of pretty powerful trinkets, but Junia got hit pretty hard with the stress attacks this run, and it was all Hak could do to keep her from having a heart attack, so I’m going to pass on that. There will be other opportunities for those at a later date. For now, everyone gets to rest on their laurels and thank goodness for one of those long-lost quiet nights in the Hamlet. See you next week, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Forty-Two -- The Swine King My first attempts at summoning were crude, and the results disappointing. I soon found, however, that the type and condition of the host's meat was a critical factor. The best results came from pigs, whose flesh is most like that of man. This is probably the boss with the biggest difficulty spike between its Apprentice version and its Veteran version. Most bosses just get bigger numbers or, where they spawn more minions, the minions get better. Not so here. The Swine King’s numbers get bigger, yes, but a whole extra dimension is added to the fight that wasn’t there before. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the lineup: Dismas got a cool trinket from the croc fight last week that I’m itching to use, and Yui is going to be particularly helpful for the strategy. Doggo is a tough bring because he’ll mostly be confined to stunning enemies with Manacles in an area where the most threatening things are either out of range, hard to stun, or both, but he’s level three and can dance in the middle of the party with Dismas in a pinch if he transforms. It does make ABC stretch a little thin between healing, flares, and possibly damage, but it’ll probably be fine. Both Doggo and Yui have a decent self-heal if it comes down to that. You’ll also notice that I remembered to pack blood just in case this time. The map we get for this run is interesting. Normally once you know the rules of bosses, it’s easy to intuit exactly which way to go. Here, though? I was convinced it was bottom left for a good portion of the run. It took a well-timed scout to reveal that it was actually in the middle. This makes sense, of course. The middle left slot is furthest from the entrance. It’s just tricky. The game is being tricky even when I think I know everything. The other thing to note is that we kept running into these same three enemies. There were three room battles on the way to the Swine King, and all of them had this organization of enemies. In fairness, it’s a tricky party. The centaur is obviously the biggest threat, but the Swine Reaver and the Swine Spawn are both bothersome as well. Yui even gets ennui from one of them. I don’t know why ennui counts as a disease one can get from pig vomit, but so it goes, I suppose. But the fights go alright. The only worry is that this turned out to be a difficult party to recover from a shuffle, but we have a camping log to recover from all that as the door to the boss looms ahead, and party shuffling won’t be a problem there. No, the problem, as always, is Wilbur. Remember last time we fought this boss, where Wilbur’s point was to mark the adventurers so the Swine Prince could hit them for massive damage? For the Veteran and Champion versions, Wilbur gets an extra action, meaning he gets to stun a party member too. Thankfully, flares clear Wilbur’s stuns as well as they clear his marks, but it’s a constant worry. If he does manage to stun ABC, it changes the entire tone of the fight. Also thankfully, a properly buffed Yui the Leper can do like 60 damage. The Swine King has almost 200 hp, but he’s also weak to both blight and bleed, so between Yui and the DOTs of both Dismas and Doggo, it doesn’t take that long, actually. It’s ABC who manages to kill the King, in the end. That just leaves Wilbur and his two speedy, stunning attacks to deal with. This would be a problem, like, he’s fast enough and can hit multiple targets. If he was smart, he could probably keep everyone locked down for a couple of turns before we manage to kill him. Of course, if we do get a turn in, well, like I said, Yui does like 60 damage. So that’s the Swine King down. There are only four people left to reach level four, though that would mean taking slightly underprepared people into a Hag fight, so I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s a definite consideration to just do a runback for the Crimson Court, especially since we can probably get an upgrade in before the next croc fight. Something to think about for next week. Until then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

Chris had to spend a while in the intermediary zone between floors and ensured everyone else did the same. They had to revive Estellise, for one, and benefit from her enchantments. Had she heard Chris’ battle-ragged oath to return her protection? The implications of what he had said hadn’t fully sunk in yet, even if he was aware of them on some level. It was a problem for future Chris. Current Chris’ problem was if this was what floor two of what was probably a five-floor affair was like, what horrors awaited them on the next three? Also, he hoped that, despite the rumors about chicks digging scars, Estellise’s healing magic was enough to keep the wound the skeleton had slapped him with from scarring. He was too young to be dealing with the consequences of his actions, or, more consequences than the ones he was already dealing with. And he hoped that he wouldn’t be too exhausted from all this for the nighttime activities he had planned, though that was dipping into future Chris’ problems again. He touched his cheek. It didn’t feel like there was scarring, but he did feel different in some indescribable way. It was probably nothing. Maybe he’d say something when they got out of the dungeon. For now, that meant going further down. The next floor was marshy in a way that made Chris glad he wasn’t riding a horse or anything. He hadn’t been all that into cavalry growing up (though his parents had insisted he at least know how, that he could get on and off a horse without injuring either himself or the animal), but especially here, he needed both feet on the ground if he wanted to get anywhere. Elsewhere in the dungeon were creatures with no feet at all, which didn’t feel very fair. Those cyclopean creatures supported a horde of shambling corpses, probably just as threatening as the skeletons of the previous floors, but he prioritized the new. Chris checked the rest of the party. Estellise was already drawing up her light bow. He pointed to the mass of creatures to the right of the structure. “That way first, I think,” he said. “It’s got less of them. Keep an eye on the other ones, though, don’t want them sneaking up behind.”

Magenta Mountain The three received a text message as they approached the warehouse containing the actual address of their destination, though, given the circumstances, it wasn’t strictly necessary. Lachesis’ instruction of “the warehouse eleven point five nine kilometers that way” had narrowed it down far enough; there weren’t any other buildings it could be. It was also bigger than someone might be expecting, but that was all warehouses, wasn’t it? The most notable feature was on the side facing them, a set of doors that stretched from the ground to the ceiling, the kind that had to be slid open by a team of people, a hydraulic system, or a brute in a pinch. Sounds of whirring machinery could be heard inside and, occasionally, a giant CRUNCH! Lachesis had also said “Pretty close to The Shimmer without getting up and personal with it,” but that was underselling it, probably because even with a gargantuan warehouse in front of it, The Shimmer was just so much bigger. In Scarlet City proper, it was easy to just not think about it, to use the relative distance as a buffer from acknowledging the cylindrical barrier keeping the world contained within it. Not so here, with just the one thing for scale. It was still early enough that the sun was still behind The Shimmer, causing blotches of color to dance around on the field between it and the warehouse. There wasn’t time to admire it, unfortunately. The Moray Clan had a job to do. Their phones buzzed with a few more messages from The Fates: oh by the way its dee “the shield” moxleys workshop barrier tinker look out for forcefields ig go gettem tigers xoxoxo The Garden Goblin In addition to the G3 heroes’ discussions amongst themselves as they made their way from G3’s headquarters in downtown Skitty to the Moray Clan-controlled Old North district about the three major gangs of Scarlet City, there were a few other ways they could get a feel for what they were getting themselves into. The first was in their helpfully provided folders, which, as Bard had explained, summarized their database entry down to a few key points. It read as follows: Lanthimos, Clotho Lachesis and Atropos Cape Name: The Fates Active for: 2 years, 7 months Power Classification: Blaster, Thinker, Blaster respectively Entry is for all three as despite them occasionally being spotted independently of each other, The Fates are most known for operating as one cohesive unit. Founders and current leaders of the Moray Clan gang. Took part in attacks on branches of Hunter, Fifty-Three, and Boffa banks and orchestrated an attack on an Edison Mk III Armored Vehicle (see: March 15 Incident). A file on the March 15 incident was not attached to the folder’s summary. Goals: Monetary gain is the common throughline in their criminal activity. The day-to-day activities of the Moray Clan involve collecting protection money and otherwise making their presence known to the community they inhabit, which further reinforces this view. Someone had scrawled “It’s not money!” in the margins of all three folders. The second way was all the posters hung up every so often as the heroes entered the Old North district of Scarlet City. Each of them had a map of the city and a photo of The Fates someone had managed to take surreptitiously. KNOW WHERE YOU ARE they all read. The Moray Clan is generally sociable towards civilians and even towards members of the G3 Hero Organization, fully willing to participate in most truces. This does not mean they are to be trusted, or that they are not still working at cross purposes to the law. They are occasionally known to display a vicious ruthlessness toward those they deem their enemies. G3 cannot condone agreeing to any form of recruitment, however temporary The Fates promise your experience might be. Most of these posters had been defaced, most of them by random graffiti tags or stickers, but a few had been slashed up entirely. The third and final impression Ember, Aeon, and Override got of The Fates on that crisp first day of November was the tableau The Fates presented themselves as the heroes descended the staircase into Echo Park proper. Each of them was on their phone. Atropos had extended one of the corners under the bridge so she could sit by the water while watching something on her phone, her face intent and her headphones locking her out from the world until Clotho noticed the heroes. Clotho, for her part, had been pacing up and down the park’s main walkway sending text after text. She only really noticed the heroes by happenstance. Lachesis was taking a selfie by the mural under the bridge. The mural was of several of Scarlet City’s bird species. This was actually the second version of this mural, made after the first had fallen into disrepair, and taggers had wasted no time covering the new version with political messages. The bird Lachesis was taking a selfie with had a pair of breasts spray painted on; the fact that it was a cardinal and not a tit didn’t seem to bother her. It was Clotho that addressed the heroes first. “You guys don’t use Catty Key on us unless it’s really important,” she said. “It’s about this, right?” Atropos tilted her phone to reveal she’d been watching a stream of Director Sekelsky addressing the press. “Real, true end-of-days stuff.” Lachesis said. “Cassandra showing up on our turf after disappearing for so long too. Imagine being the only one knowing about an S-Class.” “Basically our turf,” Atropos corrected. “The Fairgrounds aren’t officially ours yet.” “Okay, basically our turf,” Lachesis said. “Still, imagine being the only one knowing something, anything, really. You probably act differently just to keep the illusion. But now I’m rambling.” She cast her eyes towards the folders, then back up, scanning each hero in turn. She lingered long enough on Aeon -- certainly longer than the other heroes -- to be noticeable, “Those things have the plan, then? What do you have for us?” OOC

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Forty-One -- The Baron (Part One) They would arrive in teeming hordes, adorned in powdered wigs and pretension - seeking to slake their thirst on wine and indecency. As intoxication invariably took hold, innocuous frivolities would escalate to ever more disturbing diversions. Orchestrating the hideous affair was a hunchbacked fiend who seemed to delight in proportion to the suffering he caused. I could have stopped him, I suppose, but I was a slave to my own appetites, and restraint would have rendered me a hypocrite. I admit this is another broken promise, but know that I did try my hardest to get all the way to the Baron and defeat him in one run. It’s just that, well, look at this map: No, I don’t know why the only map the wiki has is in Korean, especially when the maps for all the other Crimson Court quests are not, but that’s besides the point anyway. You get the general gist of how big this thing is, right? And even if you think it’s not (which, fair, we haven’t talked about all the new surprises the Courtyard throws at you now that it’s not pulling its punches), you can see that there are two mandatory Crocodilian fights, right? There’s one other reason I felt disincentivized to complete the dungeon this week. It doesn’t physically come up, but it did change the way I played to the point where it might as well have. Yeah, I forgot to take any blood. To the dungeon I know is filled to the brim with bloodsuckers. It’s not my smartest choice, I admit, but okay. The plan once I realized was to heavily prioritize enemies with The Thirst above anything else, because getting cursed is a run-ender. Of course, we could find some blood along the way, but that’s leaving things up to chance a bit more than I’d be comfortable doing. The party, though, is about what you’d expect. Boudica does a lot of damage and inflicts bleed when she doesn’t. Damian inflicts a significant amount of bleed. Hakima bleeds and also heals stress very well, and Junia is the crowd control/healer. Would run again, just without all the misery that follows. The second fight in the whole dungeon introduces us to the enemy that’s going to be our biggest problem: the Chevalier. It’s not that it likes to sit in the back rows, we’ve got a pretty strong party to be able to deal with that, the problem with the Chevalier is that it has an attack that will stun two of your four party members while also hitting like a truck, and when it’s not doing that, it’s inflicting a pretty serious dodge debuff. It also has a bleed attack, because it wouldn’t be the Courtyard without bleeding you dry. But the Chevalier won’t give you the Curse. Also added to the Courtyard are these secret rooms (which are a bit confusing to find since “Scouting” is the mechanic used to see through the Courtyard’s Fog of War, concealing that you have to actually roll high on another scout check to reveal them) containing chained up characters who you can now add to your party through the Stagecoach. Another Vestal would be useful if we weren’t doing a Highlander run, but we are, so that’s no good. We’ve seen the Large Corpse Eater before (and it’s still surprising that the mere sight of it doesn’t cause any stress damage, but maybe that’s just game balance reasons), though it’s obviously new here. Its smaller cousins are also here but less remarkable. The new enemy, though, the Courtesan, is an interesting one. She’s got a party-wide shuffle and a stress attack, though what makes her the most threatening is, of course, The Thirst. We’d probably be killing this one first in a normal run, at least. You’ll notice on that map posted above that the Red Key item isn’t actually required to beat the dungeon. In fact, it’s easier to, instead of going down and then backtracking around to the key door, just head upwards to face the first miniboss. This is one of those times that a familiarity with the game ruins some of its tricks, because you’re definitely not supposed to know about that going in. At the same time, it’s one of the meaner tricks the game pulls (not to mention the already labyrinthine nature of the first third of the map), so if the game isn’t interested in fighting fair, neither am I. The Crocodilian can punish me for my sins if it so chooses. The last time we faced this boss, we had a set strategy to keep it off balance. That was what Alhazred was for, pulling it forward so it couldn’t set up its most devastating attack at us. This party is not built for the same shenanigans, though, this was a party built for an endurance run, so the nature of the fight has changed. This also ignores, you know, the fact that it’s a Veteran-level Croc instead of an Apprentice one. It’s tougher just because of that too. Honestly, I think this fight falls right in the middle of “could be better, could be worse.” The way it could have gone better is if it didn’t resist the first three or so attempts to stun or bleed it, and the way it could have gone worse is… well, Apex Predator is a hell of an attack. There’s a reason we tried to avoid this one. Yeah, both Junia and Boudica got put on Death’s Door, and with the Croc’s Teeth Rake also shuffling the party around, it got pretty important for Hakima to guard his allies where he could to make sure everyone got healed back up. This is where most of our bandages got spent, too, just keeping people from dropping back down. Damian, thankfully, manages to kill the thing before things get out of hand, at least. I was still willing to continue on at this point. Like, we can rebuild from this. None of the other fights have been so bad, which means both our AoE heal and stress heals can get things back to manageable. One of the more common curios here will grant a pretty significant stress heal too, so that’s definitely not an issue. But then again, I forgot exactly what fight was next. Do you see the problem? From everything you’ve seen, do you see where I messed up? That’s right, I’m obligated to kill the Manservant in front because that’s the one that will definitely end a run if I get it, but that means the three Chevaliers get free reign to knock my teeth in. If some of the adventurers weren’t close to death already, they definitely do so here. The only one that doesn’t is Hakima, and he’s the one I wanted to get hit near the end just thanks to him guarding the party’s squishier members. The real nail in the coffin here is that constantly getting put on Death’s Door is a good way to get a load of Stress dropped on you. Junia was already taking a disproportionate amount of stress from navigating the Courtyard, not to mention the 50 or so she accumulated from the Crocodilian fight, but she snaps. If this were a normal Darkest Dungeon run, if these adventurers were disposable, I probably would have kept going. Remember, you can fix these afflictions by getting their Stress back down to zero. But we’ve accumulated three invitations to the Courtyard to get this quest finished, and this is the one time our progress is saved, so I’m not going to take any chances. There’s a chess saying -- and I haven’t played chess seriously in a while so I’m probably going to butcher it -- when you make a blunder make extra sure that you don’t make a second. The run is most salvageable if we just retreat and lick our wounds. Next week, then, is the Swine King fight. -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them. -Proverbs 24:17-18 (NIV)Melissa barely had time to process anything. She knew Zadkiel’s attack worked and that Rei had let her go because of that, even if that meant Melissa had gone tumbling to the ground. She’d maintained just enough wherewithal to call her angel back to catch her, but that had given Rei time to recuperate, and from what she could understand from Rei’s speech, it wasn’t a resource she was taking lightly. Rei talked about her abilities -- confirming Melissa’s suspicions, more like -- and the world she’d come from. She also called Zadkiel a freak, which brought to mind the Spike Brothers gang. But that last thought was a bit too intrusive, and by the time Melissa had properly pictured Rei with seven green spikes on her head instead of hair, Rei was already moving again, whipping herself through the forest, grabbing Zadkiel and taking it along for the ride. Zadkiel was still holding Melissa, of course, so thankfully she couldn’t directly feel the angel being dragged across the forest floor, but she was aware of it in other ways. Every time it hit a root, that was a bump she was acutely aware of, and the red blur at the edges of her vision was back, slowly diminishing. Was it a health bar? Was that something the pods had added? It seemed to be reducing slower than Melissa assumed it would for “being dragged through underbrush” but then again she was hardier than she was back on Ambrosia and was not directly experiencing the harm besides. Still, if she wanted to win the fight (or even keep fighting at all) she couldn’t let it continue. She dismissed the angel, a move that certainly amplified her health loss but at least she could move. At least she could scramble to her feet. “Do you mean you weren’t trying before?” Melissa said. It was the sort of question she probably could have asked inwardly, but the words just slipped out. Now that they were out there, though, she felt she had to continue the thought. “Isn’t that-” No, better was, “I’m sorry, I know we already talked about the expectations behind us fighting, and that included Grigoriy and the rest of your team, I remember, and also you’ve mentioned twice what sort of world the one you’re from is like and the expectations that come from that, but, um, I’m not sure we talked about mine as much.” Also like last time, Melissa found herself approaching Rei as she spoke. “Like, did you have your ghosts on your world? Because I’ve only been able to have angels at my beck and call for two, maybe three days now. I’m trying to do my best all the time because I still don’t know what my best is. You know yours and you won’t show me? I just- I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. “Above all else, even above getting home, I just want to help people,” Melissa said. “Please, show me how I can better do that.” Melissa shut up. She was vulnerable, of course. This was another one of those “reckless maneuvers” the AI in her head screamed at her to avoid (even if they were noticeably silent here), but she could appease that by saying it was a transitionary moment. Rei probably wasn’t about to fall for the same trick twice, but that didn’t mean Melissa was out of tricks. At the same time, she knew she had to be ready for whatever Rei had been holding back from.

part of it is straight improv not singing improv so it goes here

6/10 good for her tho not really an eminem fan or a linkin park fan so while the "i can sing/rap as fast as em can" is impressive, it's not really for me 6/10OP Suggestion: tim heidecker's been a pretty fun listen 7/10

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Weeks Thirty-Nine and Forty -- The Calm Before The Storm I decided to prep just to make sure all the adventurers going into this run were all set at level four, and then there was an extra week in there to rest and recuperate. We’re getting to a point where the game is throwing more and more Champion-level dungeons at us, probably because level fours can wield Champion-level weapons, which is making the picking and choosing of these quests a little difficult. I don’t want to do long dungeons for reasons we’ve already seen, but there are a whole lot of Veteran-level long dungeons on offer as well. The “Blood and Guts” party title is certainly memorable. I don’t think Sethera will be coming to the Crimson Court with us on this run, but this bleed party will help out a lot in future Weald and Warrens runs, I think. Provided none of them die, anyway. I’m a little conflicted because neither of these two weeks’ runs is particularly interesting to talk about. We’ve already met the big new additions to each dungeon and we’ve already talked about the changes to the enemies that were already there. Making a post about preparations, it turns out, just means we’re seeing what most of the party is going to look like. There is one mechanic, though, that I believe came up for the first time here, and that’s the Pass command. Passing is disadvantageous for obvious reasons -- in a game about action economy, you don’t want to give that up -- but Red Hook Studios have decided to give it that extra oomf of adding a bit of stress to the option as well. It only came up during this fight because we killed all the other enemies besides a stealthed one and there wasn’t even a corpse to whack on. This, I suppose, is a downside to running a Hellion, she’s so bloodthirsty she doesn’t even have an option to move backwards, but that’s hardly something to worry about. It’s unlikely to come up too often. The second run was even harder to put together because the only medium-length options were this grain-gathering one, which is annoying since the grain bags take up three precious spots of inventory, and the second Hag fight, which I wasn’t about to do in the back half of an already awkward post. But there is a bright side to all this. The Crimson Court was going to be an expensive amount of provisioning because it’s so long, and the Bumper Crop event from this run is going to make it all free, so there’s that going for us. This party itself is a little awkward? Amani dancing around the party is fine since Ren doesn’t care whether he’s in slot two or slot three and Joan is flexible enough to hit from slot two if she needs to, so that’s not the problem. The real problem is that Margaret the Musketeer is the only one with a mark skill, and she’s not very speedy, so her synergy with Joan is a little lacking. There was an option somewhere for Ren to get a mark skill also, but he’s more useful using Chain Gang or Guillotine to contain enemies or close out fights respectively, so that’s out of the question. There’s also the problem that diseases are prevalent here and the two classes that can cure those on the fly -- Gravedigger and Plague Doctor -- aren’t currently in the party, which is an expensive bother. Thankfully, that curio in the background of this fight is a significant buff that lasts until the next camp, so as long as we spend our one camp beforehand, things should be alright. Yeah, something like that. Overall, a successful run, it’s just that, again, successes like these are boring to talk about. But there are a string of threatening fights coming up, from this Baron fight from the DLC to the two bosses we’ve now unlocked. We will see where things go from here. -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→

If Chris hadn’t been carrying Estellise with him, he probably would have been able to dodge the skeleton’s attack, or, if he had to get hit, he probably wouldn’t have stumbled as hard as he did, but he was, and he did. There was a sense that he was going to keep doing so, too. It wasn’t like he was about to throw Estellise to the ground or suddenly gain pounds of muscle to help him not react as hard to stuff like this. His off-hand instinctively went to his face to inspect the wound and he felt a trickle of blood run down his cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” Chris said, more to himself than Estellise. He added an extra swear under his breath as he did so and really hoped she didn’t hear that part, but there wasn’t time to apologize. As soon as his stance had steadied again, the skeleton was upon him. It wasn’t going for his face, though, it was going for Estellise, grabbing at her arms draped around his shoulders and trying to yank the girl off of him. “What? No, you can’t-” Chris yanked his shoulder back. “You can’t have her. For a lot of reasons, actually. I need to get into her family’s library, for one, and before that even I’d really like her to fix this cut you just gave me so I can kill more of your friends as best I can. But the biggest reason…” It was time to go on the offensive. Chris stepped back and drew his sword back even further. “…The biggest reason is she’s my friend! And protecting one’s friends is what people do!” With all the extra weight, he only had one shot at this. “My name is Christopher Ellworth, heir to the Ellworth estate,” he said. “There’s not a lot of honor to my name but I swear on whatever it’s worth, you will not harm her!” He stepped forward and brought his sword around in a high swing. It wasn’t truly overhead with Estellise’s arms in the way but he adapted by leaning to the side so that he could drive the sword into the skeleton’s skull. It didn’t stop there, though. His sword glanced off the skeleton’s spine and kept moving downwards, crashing deep into the shoulder blade. It probably would have kept going too, if the skeleton didn’t fall apart first, leaving just him, panting as more skeletal dogs, including one big one, formed around them. “Yeah, that means you too,” Chris said, trudging forward. “You’re not getting her either.”

This RP is now live! There's a link to the IC at the top of the OP but also one here for convenience's sake I've adjusted the accepting status to "Conditional" and removed the Discord invite. If someone wants to join at this stage, I would encourage you to send me a PM so we can talk about how best to incorporate your potential character into the story. That would also be when you'd be invited to the discord server.

OOC TUESDAY NOVEMBER 01 180 DAYS REMAIN “This is an imaginary story… Aren’t they all?” -Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (written by Alan Moore) Do All Words Can Do “Fuck!” The events of the last few hours had taken their toll on Director Sekelsky. The reports of rioting were finally dying down, people were returning to their homes, and heroes were permitted to stand down, but that just meant it was time for the casualty numbers. Multiple people had been trampled in the initial panic, and several more were injured in what ensued afterward, including one of their own, a cape who went by the name of Spotlight. It was worth another few expletives. “Fucking goddamn piece of horseshit! Cass goes off the grid for who knows how long and then decides to pull this fucking stunt. Did they know? They must have known. Surely they realized what would happen next, right? So they just left everyone else to clean up their mess, huh?” There were four other people in the room, and each of them was in costume, so Director Sekelsky mentally adopted the standard name protocols. Cape names when dressed as capes. Easy. At the opposite end of the sweatbox of a meeting room (how could it be this fucking hot in here in fucking November?) were Override, Ember, and Aeon. They were the main recipients of this briefing, chosen for a number of reasons but there was really one big one: availability. None of them had been at Hallowmas or taken the holiday standby shift (and who could blame them? It was Halloween. Even Director Sekelsky had hoped to spend the night with his husband and daughter until whatever this shit was), which meant they were actually around this morning. The fact they all had some sort of criminal record was concerning but not work scrapping and waiting for someone else. Bard was there too, seated alone on the near end of the sweatbox next to the projection screen. His costume was positively ancient, and his mask one of those tacky theater masks that only covered half of his face, but he refused to change it, always citing more pressing issues of the time. The Director couldn’t fault him for that this time. He was taking this even harder than Director Sekelksy was; he had a pair of white-knuckled fists pushed as far into the table as he could manage, and he was shaking and muttering something under his breath. It was probably something to do with his Thinker powers, Director Sekelsky thought. It wasn't something he understood, but Bard had also been instrumental in G3’s response the last few hours and he’d been a wreck then too. As long as he was functional and managed to check in with one of G3’s counselors later, he’d be alright, right? He sighed. Thinking things through like this helped get the anger out of his system. The only emotion that remained now was a quiet determination. From an egotistical point of view, it was his best feature. He didn’t have any superpowers, but he wasn’t powerless. “First thing’s first, where’s DEUS?” “Helping with the riots,” Bard said. He eased up a little too now that the meeting had started. “He was spotted in Graceland a little before midnight so he actually wasn’t too far away when it started.” “For once,” Director Sekelsky said. “For once.” “But that means don’t count on it happening again. Not that we should ever count on him.” “Especially now that it’s daytime,” Bard said. “He’ll probably be too busy rescuing cats from trees or helping old women cross the street.” “Or rescuing old women from trees,” the Director snarked. “So Plan A, then. Alright.” Bard handed him a trio of folders and he turned his attention to the three capes in the back. One for each of them. “As you are no doubt aware, the Renegade Cape Cassandra predicted the end of the world at Hallowmas last night,” he said. “This is so obviously S-Class, it’s practically the definition of the term. Unfortunately, the actual words on the truces don’t agree here. They were written more for singular, concrete threats. A tornado, some supervillain who’s gotten too big for their britches, a bio-Tinker’s experiment run amok. Not something as nebulous and off in the distance as this. If we try to litigate this through the normal channels, that’s precious time lost we could have spent dealing with whatever the fuck this actually is, so we’re hoping to avoid that.” He tossed the folders down the table, one at a time. Landing them neatly at the edge right in front of his target without anything spilling out was something that had taken countless briefings just like these to perfect, but it was worth it every time. “We do have some language in our favor, however. We just need the leaders of each of the three main gangs to agree with us, and sign a document saying as much. You three will be facilitating that.” “In those folders are our profiles on the three gangs and the leaders,” Bard said, standing up as well. “Gibbons’ Caesar” -- he pronounced it “ˈsi zər” -- “The Zodiac’s Ophiuchus, and, of course, the Moray Clan’s three Fates. Most of it’s common knowledge, but make sure you’re up to date on it. It also has my best guesses as to how the negotiations are going to play out. Unfortunately, it is probably going to be a negotiation. Six months is a lot of time for Scarlet City’s underworld to play nice.” “We’re going to have to play nice in return,” Director Sekelsky said. “We were the ones with the most cape activity last night. Again, the extenuating circumstances favor us, and obviously so, but they’ll be looking for any concession they can get. Also included in those folders is a copy of a temporary S-Class agreement. It won’t last until April, but it’s something we can use when the Peacekeepers get their act together, so as long as you don’t do anything stupid like make a legally binding agreement without our negotiators present -” “Or start a fight,” Bard said. “- or start a fight, we’re giving you a lot of leeway on this. We need those signatures, you understand? The meetings are already set up. Catty Key buzzed everyone earlier, so be sure to thank her when you get the chance. Your first meeting is with the Fates in Echo Park, the other places and times are in there as well.” His eyes met Ember’s “Ember, you’re not going to that last one as per our existing agreement regarding Gibbons, report back here after The Zodiac meeting instead for a different assignment.” The last moment lingered a bit longer than Director Sekelsky intended, which mattered in the face of all the time pressure, but was still recoverable. “You have a few minutes to finish your reading, ask any questions, you might have, and then get going. Leave through the back while the sixes don’t have the building completely surrounded yet.” Hidden World Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos Lanthimos, the Moray Clan’s three Fates, arranged themselves in various positions about their lair’s (for lack of a better word) throne room searching for something that might fit the correct vibe. It was the new costumes that were the problem here. They’d just gotten three matching dresses from Rajawongse made out of Clotho’s fibers -- and they were the kind of dresses that came with pockets! -- but the room had been put together with their old aesthetic in mind. They’d started out so stereotypical, even getting one of those prop replica thrones from that one show, but the dresses were some kind of postmodern art. They had a flow to them that looked especially nice when they all stood together and the blotches of color started to blur. It was a total clash. The only pieces of fabric left from their old costumes were their blindfolds. “Blindfolds” was another one of those words that was technically true but not really. They were a solid black, but The Fates could all see through them just fine. Part of the magic of Clotho’s string was that its properties could be whatever she wanted it to be. That was one of the reasons Rajawongse had been so inspired in the first place -- a practically infinite amount of new materials, right there at his fingertips, who wouldn’t? But phrasing it that way would also sell the Renegade clothier short. He was a master of his craft even without his power. Rajawongse had created dresses that were identical down to the tiniest stitch. With them, the only way to identify which Fate was which was their distinctive manner of speech. “Maybe it’s the room that needs to change, not us,” Clotho said. “Sure,” Lachesis said. “But that doesn’t change the fact we need to figure out what we’re doing right now,” Atropos said. She was also identifiable by the butterfly knife she carried with her, a helpful outlet for not just her power, but idle hands in general. The swish-clack sound of its handles seemed to punctuate everything that particular Fate said, and frequently some of her sisters’. They settled on one of their standard formations -- Lachesis lounging on the throne flanked on either by her two sisters -- just as three of their underlings entered the room. Vi, Sibyl, and Demiurge were their names. The Fates gave them some time to get situated and even offered them some fruit in case they hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. It was still early in the morning, after all. It also gave them an excuse to get everyone up to speed on the previous night's events, the prophecy, the riots, everything. “The Stadium isn’t our territory, though it’s close enough that it might as well be,” Lachesis said. “And we’re going to have to deal with the smashed windows that are in our territory. Some of our people are already on it.” “It won’t be finished until later, though. Right now, G3 --” “-- The Generic Good Guys --” “-- The Group of Giant Goobers --” “-- is going to be pushing us for some kind of temporary truce until they can get their act together, and we don’t have any reason not to accept.” “But we also have reason to believe the Gibbons aren’t going to take the deal,” Lachesis said. “There are a couple of reasons for that. The first is that, like, it’s Gibbons. There’s no way Caesar” -- she pronounced it “ˈsi zər” -- “is going to let a land grab opportunity slip through his fingers, no matter how bad of an opportunity it is.” “That’s what happens when most of your territory is crap,” Atropos said. Swish. Clack. “Even when you have the most of any gang in all of Skitty.” “So it’s in character for him,” Clotho said. “But perhaps more damningly, he laid out his plans this morning while Worm still had one of his walls bugged, and later we hear some Gibbons capes are on the way to our territory. So we just- we know it’s going to happen. ” “Sorry to bury the lede like that.” “Our people cleaning up Nola Street already know this,” Clotho said. “There are some pretty hefty capes helping out there, both ours and otherwise, and DEUS is still in the area for at least a little bit longer.” “We’ll fight too if we goddamn have to.” The swish-clack of Atropos’ knife was especially forceful that time. “The point is, there’s a little time before anything goes down. There are still a few preparations to make, though. More thorough battle plans, making sure complementary powers are together, that sort of thing. Your job this morning is to keep Caesar distracted, and the way we’d like you to do it is to wreck some of his shit first.” “The target is a warehouse eleven point five nine kilometers that way.” Lachesis pointed in a direction she knew to be Northeast. This was her showing off her Thinker power and she relished the opportunity. “Pretty close to The Shimmer without getting up and personal with it, about as far as possible away from what’s going to be happening here.” “We think it’s a lab for a Tinker on Caesar’s payroll, which means it’ll have a skeleton crew of just that one Tinker and an assistant or two.” “The point is to get them calling for help. We’re not killing them or anything. Just roughing them up a bit to get Caesar’s attention, you know?” Clotho winked. “Of course, if they do go running to the hills leaving a trove of Tinker tech behind, you might as well take any of the interesting shit, right?” “At the same time,” Lachesis was quick to add, “if help does show up, that’s your cue to get out of there. Remember The Stanley Principle. You’re not invincible no matter how far ahead you might seem.” The Fates finally went silent as the invocation of that nearly-sacred rule brought a little extra weight to the proceedings. Both Clotho and Atropos shifted uncomfortably where they stood, and Lachesis had to stop lounging and actually sit in her chair. “Oh, that was a lot, wasn’t it?” Clotho eventually said. “Sorry about that.” “Anyway, the actual meat and potatoes planning of this mission, that’s up to you,” Atropos said. “We’ve given you the place and the goal, kinda want to just see what you come up with,” Lachesis said. “Call it a test, you know? Show us what you can do.” OOC

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” -Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV)Okay, when she’d thought “catch me if you can,” that hadn’t been, like, an actual request. It had been a taunt, and not even one she’d said out loud. Melissa wouldn’t have dared to say that out loud even if she could in her current state. She was glad Zadkiel had two arms free for getting grabbed, though. At least the vulnerable part of the flight -- her own body -- wasn’t the target of Rei’s ghosts or whatever they were. Rei was still operating with incomplete information just as Melissa was. New possibilities opened up to her in her slumber. Zadkiel wasn’t able to wriggle free, and she wasn’t going to try and pull back and get into that sort of fight, but she did remember that the angels could be summoned how she wanted within a range she’d learned the boundaries of while fighting that woman who created sandstorms. And Rei already (hopefully?) thought Zadkiel was fragile anyway, so wasn’t this just an opportunity to reinforce that belief while it didn’t matter? This is the kind of reckless behavior we would like to discourage, the angels said in her head. Melissa wasn’t sure that was true. Which part did they disagree with? Did they not think Zadkiel could catch her again if she released the cherub and hurtled through the air, albeit unguided, for just a moment? Or was it just the act of exposing herself in the first place? Because the alternative of just letting herself be caught wasn’t exactly appealing either, and a flash step of sorts at least had the appeal of trying something out, of being something that, even if it didn’t work, could at least be something she and the angels could work on in the future. That was what training was for, right? She felt her sensations return to her as Zadkiel disappeared, freeing herself from Rei’s ethereal grip. Before she could summon her guardian protector again, though, another force seized her. She hadn’t accounted for Rei’s ability to react. That was what the warning was about. She hadn’t been fast enough. Maybe she should have expected that? Rei had avoided Melissa’s first attack easily as well, and that had only required reactions slightly slower than this new maneuver. Okay, Melissa thought, so what were her options now? If she was about to be thrown, she could handle that by just… going through the plan she was already thinking about, catching herself with her cherub before she “struck her foot against a stone” as it were. But Rei wasn’t doing that. Rei seemed content to just drag her in slowly, surely confident that she had seized her prey. Melissa gave Rei a few token struggles, enough to keep the girl focused on her, all the while also keeping her focus on the house, making sure she still knew where it was, even as she dipped back below the treeline. Melissa hoped Rei was actually pulling her towards her. Imagine if she was just dragging her somewhere else! But she soon saw Rei in one of the trees, watching her, guiding her in. And it was at that moment that she developed something of a plan. The next seconds were crucial. She knew Rei had impeccable reactions, and even with the plan, Rei still had a ghostly hand seizing her, but it was better than nothing. She focused on the space right behind Rei and closed her eyes. The angels can be summoned at range, and her opponent is close enough now to be within it. The cherub does not need to erupt forth from her body, so it simply materializes in the spot its host designated. It emits its own light, which unfortunately draws the eye to it, but distracting the opponent here is a feature of the plan, not a flaw. And just as the girl can choose a spot for her cherub, so too can she choose its position. In this case, the cherub has already wound up for a swing of its flaming sword, and, since it’s already ready, the swing comes immediately, a diagonal cut aimed right at the shoulder.

←Previous Post -- Next Post→ Week Thirty-Eight -- The Necromancer I entertained a delegation of experts from overseas, eager to plumb the depths of their knowledge and share with them certain techniques and alchemical processes I had found to yield wondrous and terrifying results. Having learned all I could from my visiting guests, I murdered them as they slept. The changes made for the Veteran-level Necromancer fight aren’t worth talking about if only because they’re so expected. That doesn’t mean there aren’t any new developments on this run, though. Let’s just get right into all that. CowCow gets the damage trinkets because The Goliath is already pretty damage-focused and just needs some accuracy. The Goliath isn’t the best class given how most of the enemies resist the bleed status effect of his main attack, but he’s still rather strong, and his random stun won’t have any other targets if he does it fast enough. Jumping ahead a little bit, I wish I managed to get a screenshot of CowCow’s damage numbers because he was hitting for like 45 on a crit. Anyway, it’s a pretty standard party, I think. Audrey lunges forward to put Cow in the optimal position to use his own lunge on turn one, Euryale is the healer, and The Goliath is the tank at the front. Both Cowcow and Euryale can also manage the Thrall’s “stress on every little hit” mechanic as well, so we shouldn’t have any trouble at all. (they write, having already played through the mission knowing exactly what trouble there is to find) Oh, look at that, two more infections. This is getting to the point where I should probably take some blood with me just for peace of mind. This is a medium dungeon, at least, which means less time for these vampires to waste away, and being a boss dungeon makes it even shorter since we know exactly where we’re going and the shortest path to get there, but these infections are adding up. Dare I try and cure them for a bit or do I just keep pushing onwards a little further? There’s also the matter of a new enemy type flying around the dungeons, the gargoyle. They are mostly annoying thanks to their high prot, but their low health means a good pick to the face courtesy of Audrey the Graverobber takes care of them easily through that. They’re also unholy, which means CowCow has little trouble as well. That isn’t to say they aren’t annoying. They either rend the front two rows and can shuffle them back or they can tail swipe the back two rows to stun them. They’re not great to keep around, but they also could easily be worse. The biggest change to the Necromancer is the enemies it summons. Sure, it has appropriately buffed health and damage numbers, but the strategy of “hold the fort and pick off the summons to keep the fight manageable” is a lot harder when the first thing it summons is a skeleton with stealth, or a tanky skeleton that takes at least two rounds to kill. Of course, that’s where the stuns come in, making the Necromancer much easier to race by virtue of simply limiting its turns. And when the stun comes with a hefty 20 Crusader damage attached, it’s pretty easy to see where things are going. That being said, it’s technically Audrey that gets the kill by virtue of getting the last hit and having her blight being part of the DOT that ends this particular necromancer’s career. There are getting to be a few too many infected adventurers waiting around with little to do, and this is our one chance before champion-level dungeons to try and alleviate that. The actual breach of the courtyard grounds won’t be next week, but we do have to get our potential party ready. See you then, -r ←Previous Post -- Next Post→