GilliamYaeger posted:

So if I'm getting this right, he's made a connection between our presence here and the fall of Bleeder's tower, naming us "King" in the process and as a result isn't sure whether he wants us around? That's...actually pretty concerning, since I'm pretty sure we haven't gone around advertising that we're taking out Lords. Which means that, somehow, we're known beyond our deeds. Even when we don't know ourselves, others know who we are, what we're after, and more likely than not where we've come from. Kaigen has recognized us, and has probably shared our description with his forces.

...Is this is because we met Karsudan at the trading camp and he recognized something in us?

Though thinking about it, maybe I'm thinking about this too hard. Strange shadow person shows up out of nowhere, starts making waves, then Bleeder gets got a few days later? That's probably enough to put two and two together. Still, the fact that we're known as a "King" probably means that Karsudan's told Kaigen about us at some point...

Black August posted:

The perfect blue muscular hue is strained tense. Basanater's eyes are royally bright, his crown gleaming with the proof of his immense strength and physical skill. He gestures every word with his black-robed body, showing his passionate stress as he seeks to overwhelm you with height and impatience. You need to choose how to respond to the King, and the kaleidoscope diamond of your third eye mind isn't helping with the spray of colorwide ideas.

Mushroom Tells All posted:

KARSUDAN
Ogre King
Archpriest

The tigergild comes into more complex focus across the endless mental landscape of sprouting mushrooms. He's so worried. He's so anxious. It's so scary. It's so bad. Kaigen's destiny is dead. It's gone. His Godstar winked out of the sky, his dreams dark of his loving visions.

Karsudan's faith is the color of crisis, that incredible clawstreak of red-orange-yellow. Hopeless, the color absence, slowly eating its way from his head to his heart. He can't stand seeing his Emperor this way. Kaigen has tried so hard, survived the end of the God's Dream, smiled along with the indignity of service to the corporation, accepted the torment of lunardom, all to have it switched off.

And now. Now. Now. Being on the run. Hiding. Skulking. Fearing. Weeping. Hunted by the miserable suited slavers. Deimos wasn't interested in pursuit, and this was supposed to be an easy moot, a guide to how it'd go down going forward, made safe by the supervision of Momma Logon's awful wisdom.

Then Jono got mouthy. Then Deimos got high. Then the cultist showed up. Then Momma Logon grew angry. Then they started shouting and all the Archpriest could do was distract himself with Kobold (hello) deal and price.

Anything. Anything for the might to smite all these unheroic. Anything to return the love of his dog-fallen Emperor.

Silver Reflects All posted:

BASANATER
Ogre King
Archknight

Look. Shhh. Soft. Soft. The King is always in thought. Anxious, angry, angry. It's living nightmare. Suffocate. Scream into your arm while biting down on flesh ultramarine. Royal ruin. Your soul is gone and you're screaming empty knowing you're a living corpse who will wink from existence once murdered. It's all dead and you're all living corpses. You're casually violent and weeping forgiving. You can't control your vomit. Organic is nightmare and you're awake every day because dreaming is screaming. How many bad dreams? Cults which poo poo on the divine. Screaming maggots injecting plants and loving in the bushes. You vomit. Reeking hot dryad mutants who killed an entire legion and lap up their blood in alchemy. You vomit. Harassing Fae who hate and masturbate over the fall fall fall of the only dreams to fail the reach of true divine existence. You vomit. Corporate harassers and assassins, liquid-tongue with deals and lies that all fail to live up to the remote hope of safety. You vomit.

Kaigen is smiling and laughing and you're crying and screaming.

Dread. You're going through the motions. Depression. You're watching the faithful die. Disquiet. You're going feral with how powerless your might has made you.

The Archpriest is in and out of delusion. The Archmagi is mad with manic ambition. You're alone in Hell, and you don't even have a soul left to sell.

The Silver Mind posted:

The Squire pushes the reports forward, his usual military bluster cooled to contemplation. You're all seated outside at a ragged wooden table half mended with airsteel and gemglass. There's going to be a class later today, but it's just the three of you right now. Coffee steams in a pyrite pot, the Sun cascading rays off of it into a wall of goldglow. You haven't touched your cup.

"His forces are moving erratic all over the valley and beyond. He's dipping in and out of the Dreamlands from his gate every day. The six Kings are operating as much on their own as with him. We're not sure yet which are still WITH him with him, and which are going to split. Nothing else is known for certain."

Aitvaras is toying with his sword, feathers flared. Lasers is uneasy too, nibbling at the jadegreen grass of the summer morning courtyard. You decide to broach the subject related to this, so you can finally piece together what they've been reluctant to look at. Because, one more thing is known for certain about Kaigen's recent lunacy; the Emperor of Heaven. You ask Aitvaras, what does he know regarding Kaigen's infatuation with the Ranger?

He's on the defensive right away. The Squire is caught by surprise too; he only knows the half of it, and doesn't seem to get why the chicken is flustered. He doesn't know that the two of you still have a strong patch of thorn in your love. The Guard and its ways was a complicated issue for you, informed by past example and present worry. You still feel that the Ranger coerced Aitvaras into joining, even though it had ended up being a great change for his healing. But the way he likes to keep secrets... it's an old bad habit of his that he likes sublimating into the Guard's culture too much. You both wanted to keep parts of your lives separate, but his lack of communication over some details had upset you enough to need to talk to him about it.

Then again, the two way street. You haven't been terribly responsible with your end of the bargain, and it had cost Aitvaras a few times. But right now, the terror of war erases all care of compromise as the dark old bubbles up somewhere in the back of the black. You have to know.

"It's not that I don't want to say. But this is stuff I didn't even want to find out. It's too personal, and it's a bad topic to be around in. She doesn't like it."

He's doing it again. The little poofty wing-shield thing when he's feeling nervous and on guard. It makes you want to scowl and scold... but you fight your crown, forcing your neurons to first coarse down through the strange new gild of your heart, and bring its considerations back up to the black table of intent. With that accord, you find the difficult power of the open hand. You reach out and gently touch his wing, softening your face so you can clearly say two words that you mean sincere.

(I'm scared.)

Look- in his eyes. There it is! Oh his face is sharpening with that avian lovely, into something fierce you want to see every day. You want to just throw yourself into him and let his wings guard you, because you really are afraid. You want to beg for the confidence of his insight. The Squire is silent, having never seen this out of you two before. Thankfully, Aitvaras breaks the spell with admission.

"...Rienne was the Hero destined to face Kaigen in the past life they shared. When she- when she was someone else. They never met; she died and rebecame, Kaigen escaped into the Dreamlands. Now they have met, but destiny is dead. But Kaigen thinks this means that destiny isn't really dead, not for him, because them meeting was against all probability; he thinks that means there's some secret greater destiny he has to achieve, and he's doing all of this now to fulfill it. Especially since he was a witness on the day it died."






Oh. Uh, that is kind of personal and creepy. But you're immediately glad he told you, because alarms are singing clear. From everything Miss Bella has told you about destiny, Kaigen has an extremely unhinged motivation, and Aitvaras just made it clear how far it was going. You don't want to think again about how much that day had to do with you.

But knowing that about the Ranger knots your stomach a little as you think back through your interactions with her intimidating self. Always with that lazykill smile. The open secret of her werewolf nature. The surreality of her Heavenly power. But even crowned, she refused to rule, insisting her only title of authority within Home was Captain of the Guard. Did the death bother her? Didn't seem to.

But now her destined slay has gone astray, wild mad with soul in decay.

Grond posted:

Yeah, the Kaigen thing is, uh, I don't think it's that good tbh. I'm pretty sure Kaigen's fate was to confront a hero, possibly the Town Guard chief/Emperor of Heaven (which would explain his war on the colony, not that these guys need that much of an excuse for that though). Us signaling we carry that fate within us is probably painting a huge target in our backs whenever he sees we can walk the walk.

The Blue Book posted:

~THREE LEGENDARY PERKS~

ARCHMAGERY
^{[7 Levels]}
Achieved through grueling devotion to Mana, and the insane of an early Dancer kill. Archmagery automatically provides access to the !All Magic power, which can either randomcast any spell in the game, or attempt to force a spell related to a specific effect or desire. It could even cast Wish, at the dire cost of 10 points from an attribute. This brief time of tremendous power led to a number of important discoveries used in later oneruns, as well as clarifying a number of arguments regarding older code dives and found-once-never-again spells. The requirements to achieve it were not and are not clear, but it did involve using only magic, never touching iron, eating an enormous number of pixies, abusing the moonclock, and what the onerunner considered most important; getting the Mana Sapling event, and choosing to pray for its health in the name of 'The Emperor of Hell'. Archmagery also has the effect of causing your @ to flicker between shades of green and blue, as well as raising the local Mana level to High.

CLOCKTICKS
^[EVENT]
Achieved only a handful of times by lucky onerunners who managed to make it into Paradise. Clockticks is a ridiculous Perk, giving a suite of existing abilities, as well as unique ones. Clockticks provides the benefits of The Reflex, or doubles them if you already have it. Every single action or event that demands an immediate reflex action will have a new Clocktick option, since you can mentally slow time down to the point you can anticipate anything that isn't faster than light. Possibly one of the most powerful perks in the game, and one that makes fighting Hunter feasible.

I AM
^[?]
Achieved during a corrupted onerun. Its legend is that it's never been seen or found in any successful codedive. It was a passive perk with obscure effects. It extended an aura from the character, which terraformed all land within its range to gain the Dark and Holy elements. Will rolls seemed to always succeed, and anyone walking into the aura often suffered sudden Awe Checks or Fright Checks. While the elemental impossibility is strange, what made it legend was when it proc'd against against Hider, causing the game to crash and be lost, but not before the character said the line "My Dad is gonna turn your Megalith into a theme park!!"

Black August posted:

Character Sheet posted:

[Active] The Backup Cultist Paprika Blue likes you enough to ask a favor for one in turn. Go gett͜ ҉ ̵ ̵ ͜ ̷

JT Jag posted:

Mental note: don't wear the CROWN OF BLOOD