Where to download blade and soul
The Subreddit of Soul Knight by ChillyRoom Inc.
2017.01.18 00:29 TurboSwaggz The Subreddit of Soul Knight by ChillyRoom Inc.
A game available on the Google Play Store Apple and App Store for free, as well as the Nintendo Switch! Soul Knight is an action Rogue-like/Bullet-hell dungeon course played using different in game classes while traversing levels increasing in difficulty. Visit https://www.reddit.com/SoulKnight/about/wiki/main for resources!
2018.05.16 15:37 Brenner14 r/chadsriseup
2016.01.25 19:39 Rustokk Blade & Soul Subreddit
Blade & Soul Subreddit
2024.05.19 04:54 LLLNNNGGG Basic Skyrim Xbox logical load order (LLO) template with “vanilla plus+” examples (2024)
This is for us normies who don’t want to sift through a hundred youtube videos just to figure out basic information that should be readily available. This guide is designed for people who are new to modding.
This LLO follows Brxsie’s model. For more detailed info on categorization refer to their reddit post.
You can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP.
Key:
*= my personal notes explaining what a mod does or why I added it
e.g. = extra examples of popular mods that should be placed in that category
Blurb
(skip this section if you want the quick version of this post)
Hi everyone; I’m not a modder nor a PC player, but I was desperate to figure out how to safely load my game with reasonable lore-friendly updates. Every LLO guide I’ve found so far has either been outdated, contradictory to other sources, does not specify which mods fall under what category, is way too vague, or way too specific. The mods I’ve listed here should be easily searchable on the recently updated Xbox creations menu so that any Xbox player can easily copy this list. Originally, I was just recording my LLO for my own personal use, but I figured this could help people who don’t have the time to put in as much research as I have.
If you are brand new to modding, vanilla+ means that you want to stay faithful to the original game as much as possible while upgrading the look of your Skyrim world and making a few convenient tweaks. The least “true to the original game” mod on this list is convenient horses. In my experience so far, this LLO plays just as smoothly as vanilla Skyrim.
Unless I wrote a note next to the mod stating otherwise, all of these mods are independent of one another, except for: divine atmosphere, divine atmosphere snowflake edit, and realistic snowflakes. If you like the ugly fractal snowflakes in divine atmosphere then don’t bother with the other two mods, but if not, you need the vanilla snowflake edit and the snowflake texture mod to go together. Therefore, you can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP), and the game will function normally.
To customize settings of mods while in-game, go to magic -> powers. “Equip” the mod you want to change and press RB once out of the menu. This is relevant to divine atmospheres, divine interiors, flute finder, convenient horses, and some dialogue mods.
Most mods on this list can be downloaded or deleted safely while playing a pre-existing save file. Deleting mods become problematic when you have already added and interacted with a custom item to the game and then delete the mod that supported the item. When testing new mods, I suggest only adding a few at a time so that you know what to delete if you encounter any issues.
If you are reading this on a laptop or PC, you can press command/control F to search for keywords of the mods you want to install to find where they belong in the LLO.
Personally, my favorite mods that I’ve added to the game are the dialogue mods and the texture mods. They make Skyrim feel like a real world with real people living in it and I would highly suggest using some or all of them. I’d also love to hear everyone’s suggestions on proposed edits to this load order. Please let me know if you are aware of any conflicting mods or bugs, or if I have made any mistakes in my layperson's explanation of techy stuff. Unsure if this is relevant information, but I’m located in the USA.
Extra notes:
What the heck is a leveled list? A leveled list is a change in the code that makes changes to certain values. Such as changing how much gold a character has or how powerful an enemy is.
And what exactly is an area edit? An area edit is any mod that adds or significantly changes a location in the game. This includes adding extra trees, adding extra smelters, or adding custom player homes that do not exist in vanilla, among other things.
Why are there all of these categories and why is it so complicated? LLO sorts mods so that the game can load the most important files first. When LLO is not followed, the game will inevitably crash. Categories allow us to sort mods into the LLO based on how they interact with the game's code. People sometimes disagree on what order to put the categories in, but all LLO templates use the same basic categories.
I do not use immersive citizens AI because multiple people have reported bugs. Other people have no issues with it, but I prefer to stay on the safe side.
Remember to lower your in-game brightness, especially when you are using divine interiors and divine atmospheres. If the brightness is all the way up, things will start to glow. You will have to use torches in locations with zero light, such as corners in caves. This adds a realistic feel to the game. If you give a torch to your follower, they will automatically use it in in low-light conditions. I switch between default/glimmegrim/vivid depending on where I am and how colorful I want things to be. The game may look darker overall as you can see in the screenshots, but this is more true to how lighting works in the real world.
Skyrim 101 tip: When you ditch items to reduce your carry weight, store them somewhere (such as a dead body or a chest) instead of dropping them on the ground. If you drop items all over your game it will eventually lag.
When creating a new character, keep in mind that once you start playing, you might change the lighting and make the colors more saturated. For example: I accidentally gave myself yellow hair instead of natural blonde because I forgot about lighting and atmosphere changes. This is another reason to install the vanity mirror mod, which allows you to change your character mid-game.
Storage space: all of the mods I have listed here take up approximately 4.36GB.
I suggest keeping a note of your LLO on your phone so that you can easily categorize mods you want to add the future.
Sometimes LLO will not save, so I recommend double-checking that everything landed in the right spot or backing up your LLO to bethesda before exiting the LLO menu.
Sometimes you need to restart your game to enable a newly installed mod.
How to delete a complex mod without causing problems: disable the mod, hard reset (hold power button for 10 secs or unplug the console), uninstall the mod, hard reset.
I’ve noticed a bug where I cannot tell my follower (Lydia) to do anything in “command mode”. I don’t know what’s causing this- it seems like a dialogue issue but I rarely use the command mode feature anyway so it’s small enough for me to ignore for now. Let me know if you find out what's causing this!
*Blurb over\*
Master Files
Any craftable item
Perk overhauls/changes
Magic additions and modifications
Any audio
Grass Fixes
Skin/skeleton physics and appearance changes
*The mods I’ve listed in this section should cover almost every visual in the game. Nothing is too drastic of a style change and fits right in to the game’s vibe.
Immersion (e.g. immersive patrols, landlord etc.) - can be tricky to categorize
Anything that changes a character’s/npc face or hair (e.g natural eyes)
Lightweight multiple area edits
Multiple area edits (e.g. divine cities)
*I do not recommend divine cities or divine villages because it can be buggy. One time Lydia got permanently stuck in a modded tavern and I had to backtrack through an hour of progress to get her back out
Adding individual unique objects
Mods that add new quests (mods that alter vanilla quests do not go here)
submitted by LLLNNNGGG to SkyrimModsXbox [link] [comments]
This LLO follows Brxsie’s model. For more detailed info on categorization refer to their reddit post.
You can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP.
Key:
*= my personal notes explaining what a mod does or why I added it
e.g. = extra examples of popular mods that should be placed in that category
Blurb
(skip this section if you want the quick version of this post)
Hi everyone; I’m not a modder nor a PC player, but I was desperate to figure out how to safely load my game with reasonable lore-friendly updates. Every LLO guide I’ve found so far has either been outdated, contradictory to other sources, does not specify which mods fall under what category, is way too vague, or way too specific. The mods I’ve listed here should be easily searchable on the recently updated Xbox creations menu so that any Xbox player can easily copy this list. Originally, I was just recording my LLO for my own personal use, but I figured this could help people who don’t have the time to put in as much research as I have.
If you are brand new to modding, vanilla+ means that you want to stay faithful to the original game as much as possible while upgrading the look of your Skyrim world and making a few convenient tweaks. The least “true to the original game” mod on this list is convenient horses. In my experience so far, this LLO plays just as smoothly as vanilla Skyrim.
Unless I wrote a note next to the mod stating otherwise, all of these mods are independent of one another, except for: divine atmosphere, divine atmosphere snowflake edit, and realistic snowflakes. If you like the ugly fractal snowflakes in divine atmosphere then don’t bother with the other two mods, but if not, you need the vanilla snowflake edit and the snowflake texture mod to go together. Therefore, you can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP), and the game will function normally.
To customize settings of mods while in-game, go to magic -> powers. “Equip” the mod you want to change and press RB once out of the menu. This is relevant to divine atmospheres, divine interiors, flute finder, convenient horses, and some dialogue mods.
Most mods on this list can be downloaded or deleted safely while playing a pre-existing save file. Deleting mods become problematic when you have already added and interacted with a custom item to the game and then delete the mod that supported the item. When testing new mods, I suggest only adding a few at a time so that you know what to delete if you encounter any issues.
If you are reading this on a laptop or PC, you can press command/control F to search for keywords of the mods you want to install to find where they belong in the LLO.
Personally, my favorite mods that I’ve added to the game are the dialogue mods and the texture mods. They make Skyrim feel like a real world with real people living in it and I would highly suggest using some or all of them. I’d also love to hear everyone’s suggestions on proposed edits to this load order. Please let me know if you are aware of any conflicting mods or bugs, or if I have made any mistakes in my layperson's explanation of techy stuff. Unsure if this is relevant information, but I’m located in the USA.
Extra notes:
What the heck is a leveled list? A leveled list is a change in the code that makes changes to certain values. Such as changing how much gold a character has or how powerful an enemy is.
And what exactly is an area edit? An area edit is any mod that adds or significantly changes a location in the game. This includes adding extra trees, adding extra smelters, or adding custom player homes that do not exist in vanilla, among other things.
Why are there all of these categories and why is it so complicated? LLO sorts mods so that the game can load the most important files first. When LLO is not followed, the game will inevitably crash. Categories allow us to sort mods into the LLO based on how they interact with the game's code. People sometimes disagree on what order to put the categories in, but all LLO templates use the same basic categories.
I do not use immersive citizens AI because multiple people have reported bugs. Other people have no issues with it, but I prefer to stay on the safe side.
Remember to lower your in-game brightness, especially when you are using divine interiors and divine atmospheres. If the brightness is all the way up, things will start to glow. You will have to use torches in locations with zero light, such as corners in caves. This adds a realistic feel to the game. If you give a torch to your follower, they will automatically use it in in low-light conditions. I switch between default/glimmegrim/vivid depending on where I am and how colorful I want things to be. The game may look darker overall as you can see in the screenshots, but this is more true to how lighting works in the real world.
Skyrim 101 tip: When you ditch items to reduce your carry weight, store them somewhere (such as a dead body or a chest) instead of dropping them on the ground. If you drop items all over your game it will eventually lag.
When creating a new character, keep in mind that once you start playing, you might change the lighting and make the colors more saturated. For example: I accidentally gave myself yellow hair instead of natural blonde because I forgot about lighting and atmosphere changes. This is another reason to install the vanity mirror mod, which allows you to change your character mid-game.
Storage space: all of the mods I have listed here take up approximately 4.36GB.
I suggest keeping a note of your LLO on your phone so that you can easily categorize mods you want to add the future.
Sometimes LLO will not save, so I recommend double-checking that everything landed in the right spot or backing up your LLO to bethesda before exiting the LLO menu.
Sometimes you need to restart your game to enable a newly installed mod.
How to delete a complex mod without causing problems: disable the mod, hard reset (hold power button for 10 secs or unplug the console), uninstall the mod, hard reset.
I’ve noticed a bug where I cannot tell my follower (Lydia) to do anything in “command mode”. I don’t know what’s causing this- it seems like a dialogue issue but I rarely use the command mode feature anyway so it’s small enough for me to ignore for now. Let me know if you find out what's causing this!
*Blurb over\*
Master Files
- Unofficial skyrim special edition patch (USSEP) *almost every source says that this must be installed. It fixes core bugs in the game that developers have not bothered to update themselves
- Convenient horses *allows you to summon your horse from anywhere, store items on your horse, give followers horses, etc.
- Guard dialogue overhaul
- Follower commentary overhaul
- Misc dialogue edits and more
- Relationship dialogue overhaul
- Font replacer - eadui
Any craftable item
- Vanity Mirror *this is to fix the makeup bug where your lips are off center when you create your character. I have not tested this yet, but apparently if you open up the customization menu with the vanity mirror then the makeup will work again. Cheat room also works for the makeup issue, but I didn’t want so many extra cheats in my game just to fix this one ridiculous bug
- Get no more dead followers *functionally turns off friendly fire for followers
- Flute finder - a skyrim gps tracker for npcs *this is because I always lost my followers in vanilla and it was super annoying
- Multiple Marriages *haven’t tested this yet so cannot vouch for its effectiveness
- Auto unequip ammo *unequips arrows when you uneauip your bow so that you’re not always walking around with a sheath on your back
Perk overhauls/changes
Magic additions and modifications
- Master of Destruction (xb1) *adds new high level spells that target specific characters instead of killing everyone in the area
- Mining spell *I hate carrying a stupid pickaxe everywhere, so this spell mines for you. I haven't tested this mod yet though
- Better gold *adds slightly more gold when looting specific high level enemies
- Master trader 1x *this replenishes merchant gold each time you speak to them
Any audio
- Chapter II - Jeremy Soule inspired music *Jeremy Soule composed the original game soundtrack. This adds a few hours of similar sounding music that blend in with the game
- Divine Atmosphere: Aetherius *my favorite setting is vivid or grim
- Divine Atmosphere: Aetherius vanilla snowflakes option
- Ultra realistic snow flakes (custom snowflake texture) *if searching for this mod, search for “snow flakes” instead of “snowflakes”
Grass Fixes
Skin/skeleton physics and appearance changes
- pristine vanilla movement
- XP32 maximum skeleton special edition plus *changes some physics for smoother movement
- 360 walk and run *at first I put this in the gameplay mechanics category, but it did not work there. In the animation category it works as intended
*The mods I’ve listed in this section should cover almost every visual in the game. Nothing is too drastic of a style change and fits right in to the game’s vibe.
- Wear multiple rings *this mod is more useful for stacking enchantments rather than pure aesthetics. Not necessary if you want a more vanilla game
- Divine texture pack - architecture
- Dark ages: fantasy dungeons
- Dark ages: dragon Textures
- Divine creatures texture pack
- Omen armors weapons and clothing *I highly recommend this one!
- Fluffy snow
- Dark ages - landscapes
- Divine skins and bodies for men *misleading name: this is actually unisex. Make sure this goes above^ divine people otherwise you might experience an occasional face glitch. This must be used along with divine people in order to work correctly
- Granite mountains *another mod I highly recommend
- Dark Ages: Trees of the north
- Divine SMIM *Static mesh improvement mod. SMIM mods redesign lots of small items in the game
- Lucidaps’ high poly project v5.x *This corrects blocky items to make things look more realistic. It cooperates with the SMIM to create beautifully textured and realistic item designs, such as the ridiculously good looking head of cabbage
Immersion (e.g. immersive patrols, landlord etc.) - can be tricky to categorize
Anything that changes a character’s/npc face or hair (e.g natural eyes)
- Divine people of skyrim: celestial *For more vanilla/gritty looking people, try the dark ages texture pack. Both divine people and dark ages people mods must be paired with its corresponding skins mod, otherwise the textures will get cut off at the neck due to mismatching colors
- Divine interiors shadows and light *my favorite setting is glimmer or default if the game looks too oversaturated because of the lighting. I highly recommend this mod, it makes the game feel much richer
Lightweight multiple area edits
- Unique bridges of skyrim
- Divine forests
- Get more smelters *haven’t tested this extensively but I don’t foresee any issues since it doesn’t interfere with anything big
Multiple area edits (e.g. divine cities)
*I do not recommend divine cities or divine villages because it can be buggy. One time Lydia got permanently stuck in a modded tavern and I had to backtrack through an hour of progress to get her back out
Adding individual unique objects
- Auto Harvest Ring *because I like alchemy but hate picking flowers. Equipping this ring automatically harvests ingredients in range. Just remember to ditch the cabbages to reduce your carry weight
- Dark ages: immersive dragon ai
- Better stealth ai for followers *followers will not start fighting automatically while you are trying to be sneaky
Mods that add new quests (mods that alter vanilla quests do not go here)
- More to say 9.0.2 *this dialogue mod is here because it adds new quests. The other dialogue mods I’ve added are less consequential and simply add a little immersion. I’m unsure if this conflicts with the other dialogue mods
- A quality world map - vivid with stone roads *map mods use up VRAM and many people recommend against using them. I’m not a tech person, so forgive me if this isn’t accurate, but VRAM is similar to regular RAM. This means you can reset VRAM if you hard restart your console. If you are playing with tons of heavyweight mods all the time then maybe you should skip map mods, however in this LLO I have not noticed any FPS changes at all and personally, it’s worth it to me to hard restart the console every once in a while so that I can keep this mod. Source for the tech info (posted Oct. 2023) - https://www.xboxforums.com/threads/ram-and-vram.24007/
- Pastel map markers *Can you tell I like organizing? Color coding the map makes it more readable and gives locations a touch more personality
2024.05.19 04:44 LordofBones89 Revised Deities (3.5e): Lathander, the Morninglord
LATHANDER
The Morninglord, Commander of Creativity, Patron to Spring and Eternal Youth, Mentor of Self-Perfection, Bringer of the Dawn, Lord of Birth and Renewal
Greater Power of Elysium
Symbol Sunrise made of pink, red, and yellow gems, or a simple rosy pink disk
Realm Morninglory (Elysium/Eronia)
Alignment Neutral Good
Aliases none
Superior none (AO)
Allies Chauntea (lover), Deneir, Eldath, Gond, Ilmater, Kelemvor, Llira, Lurue, Mielikki, Milil, Oghma, Paladine, Selune, Siamorphe, Silvanus, Sune, Torm, Tyche (dead), Tymora, Tyr, Ushas
Foes Bane, Beshaba, Bhaal (dead), Cyric, Ibrandul (dead), Iyachtu Xvim (dead), Loviatar, Moander (dead), Myrkul (dead), Shar, Talona
Servants none
Servitor Creatures butterflies, celestials of all types, elysian dragons, hollyphants, radiant creatures, robins (normal and celestial), sanctified creatures, sun peacocks (normal and celestial), sunwyrms (good aligned only)
Manifestations an intense and rosy radiance that appears around objects to indicate special qualities or at confusing or dangerous junctures to indicate a safe or preferred path, and that causes those people it surrounds to be telekinetically pushed out of harmful situations, healed of all wounds, purged of any diseases, poisons, foreign objects, magical and nonmagical afflictions and deleterious effects, magical or psionic compulsions, fear, and curses, causes resurrection effects to be automatically successful, and transmits messages
Signs of Favor aster blossoms, an intense and rosy radiance with the same qualities as his manifestation, sun peacock feathers
Worshipers Aristocrats, artists, athletes, farmers, hunters of the undead, merchants, monks of the Sun Soul, peasants, performers, the youthful
Cleric Alignments LG, NG, CG
Specialty Priests Morninglord
Holy Days Midsummer morning, the mornings of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes
Important Ceremonies Song of Dawn; contracts, marriages and promises made at dawn, funerals for those not meant to be raised or resurrected
Portfolio Athletics, birth, creativity, dawn, renewal, self-perfection, spring, vitality, youth
Domains Community, Courage, Endurance, Good, Glory, Hope, Life, Protection, Radiance, Renewal, Strength, Zeal
Favored Weapon Dawnspeaker (heavy or light mace)
LATHANDER
Male Sentinel 20, Cleric 20, Morninglord 20, Master of Radiance 5
NG Medium Outsider (Extraplanar, Good)
Divine Rank 17
Init 44 (+16 Dex, +8 Superior Initiative); Senses 17-mile-radius; Listen 77, Spot 77; remote sensing (20 locations), portfolio sense
Aura divine aura (DC 78), courage (100 ft, +8 saves against fear), radiant 3/day; Languages can communicate with any living creature; Words of Creation
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
AC 105, touch 57, flat-footed 95, undead 107 (+18 armor, +20 deflection, +10 Dex, +17 divine, +30 natural)
hp 1,860 (20d10 + 45d8 plus 1300), fast healing 74; divine shield 23/day (170 hp); renewal 1/day (if fall below 0 but less than -10 hit points regain 1d8 +20 hp); DR 40/epic, evil and adamantine
Immune ability damage, ability drain, banishment, death effects, disease, disintegration, electricity, energy drain, fire, imprisonment, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, rebuking, sleep, sonic, stunning, transmutation, and turning
Resist acid 37, cold 37; SR 81
Fort 111 Ref 101 Will 105; +2 against evil outsiders and undead, +4 against mind-affecting effects from evil outsiders, +5 against evil spells or spells from evil characters
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Speed 60 ft. (12 squares)
Melee dawnspeaker 115/110/105/100 (55 plus 18 fire plus 18 holy plus 1 negative level vs evil plus 48 vs evil outsiders and undead plus undead disruption [Fort DC 79 or die]/19-20/x2 plus 36 fire plus 36 holy plus 2 negative levels vs good plus death [Fort DC 79, evil outsiders and undead] plus undead disruption [Fort DC 79 or die]), +8 atk vs evil outsiders and undead; or
Melee spell 80 or
Ranged spell 76
Base Atk +43; Grp +63
Atk Options Awesome Smite, Cleave, Holy Potency, Power Attack; smite evil 24/day (+20 atk, +455 damage)
Special Actions alter reality, divine blast (444 damage) 23/day, feat of endurance 1/day (+30 Con for 1 minute), destroy evil outsiders and undead 27/day as a 66th level cleric (turning check 73, turning damage 105; Heighten Turning, Intensify Turning, Multiturning, Quicken Turning), protective ward 1/day (+65 resistance bonus to one saving throw for one hour), surge of hope 1/day (when failing a skill check, attack roll, or saving throw, add 1d6 to the result), touch of life 1/day (1d6 +65 temporary hp to a single creature for one hours), zeal 1/day (take 20 on a skill check, except on checks are not normally allowed to take 20, without increasing the amount of time needed to make the check); Battle Blessing, Corona (Will DC 62), Divine Censure (Will DC 62), Epic Divine Might, Epic Divine Vengeance, Sacred Vengeance
Combat Gear dawnspeaker
Divine Spell-like Abilities (CL 65th; +1 good spells; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified)
At will – aid, animate objects, animate plants, antimagic field, atonement, bear’s endurance, bigby’s clenched fist, bigby’s crushing hand, bigby’s grasping hand, blade barrier (DC 53), bless, bless weapon, bolt of glory, bull’s strength, charm person (DC 48), cloak of bravery, color spray (DC 48), commune, consecrate, crown of glory (DC 55), death ward, dismissal (DC 51), dispel evil (DC 52), disrupt undead, disrupting weapon (DC 52), endure elements, enlarge person, widened faerie fire, flame strike (DC 52), fire shield, fire seeds (DC 53), freedom, gate, globe of invulnerability, good hope, greater cloak of bravery, greater dispel magic, greater heroism, greater planar ally, greater restoration, greater status, greater teleport, heat metal (DC 49), helping hand, heroes’ feast, heroism, hide from undead (DC 48), holy aura (DC 55), holy smite (DC 51), holy sword, holy word (DC 54), hypnotic pattern (DC 49), iron body, lesser restoration, lion’s roar (DC 56), magic vestment, mass bear’s endurance, mass heal (DC 56), mind blank, mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion, plant growth, plane shift (DC 52), polymorph any object (DC 55), prayer, prismatic sphere (DC 56), prismatic spray (DC 54), prismatic wall (DC 56), protection from energy, protection from evil, rary’s telepathic bond, rainbow, rainbow pattern (DC 51), refreshment, refuge, regenerate, reincarnate (DC 51), remove disease, remove fear, repulsion (DC 54), righteous might, sanctuary (DC 48), scintillating pattern, searing light, sustain, spell immunity, spell resistance, status, stoneskin, sympathy (DC 55), summon monster IX (good creatures only), sunbeam (DC 54), sunburst (DC 55), tongues.
1/day – calm emotions (DC 51)
Master of Radiance Spell-like Abilities (CL 56th; +1 good spells; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified; only usable during aura of radiance)
1/round – beam of sunlight, searing light
Morninglord Spell-like Abilities (CL 54th; +1 good spells; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified)
1/day – daylight, searing ray (as searing light, but automatically empowered against undead)
Cleric Spells per Day (CL 54th; +1 good spells; all spells are energized and maximized; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified)
20th (3+1/day) – heightened intensified end to strife (DC 63) (x2), heightened last judgement (DC 70), enhanced heightened intensified mass heal (DC 59) (D).
19th (3+1/day) – heightened miracle (DC 69) (x2), consecrated intensified purified sacred storm of vengeance (DC 59), enhanced empowered heightened sunburst (DC 63) (D).
18th (3+1/day) – consecrated enhanced heightened purified flame strike (DC 62) (x2) (D), intensified quickened righteous smite (DC 57), enhanced intensified righteous smite (DC 57).
17th (3+1/day) – heightened holy word (DC 67) (D), heightened know true name (DC 67), empowered intensified lion’s roar (DC 58), heightened quickened miracle (DC 63).
16th (4+1/day) – intensified mass heal (DC 59), intensified righteous exile (DC 59) (x2), intensified storm of vengeance (DC 59), enhanced quickened sunburst (DC 58) (D).
15th (4+1/day) – empowered intensified blade barrier (DC 56) (D), enhanced quickened searing erupt (DC 59) (x2), intensified mass cure critical wounds, heightened righteous glare (DC 65).
14th (4+1/day) – enhanced fire-substituted fiery searing lion’s roar (DC 58) (D), heightened quickened holy word (DC 60) (x2), empowered quickened sunburst (DC 58) (x2).
13th (4+1/day) – enhanced quickened flame strike (DC 55) (D), quickened implosion (DC 59) (x2), quickened sublime revelry, intensified weight of sin (DC 56).
12th (5+1/day) – empowered enhanced blade barrier (DC 56) (D), empowered enhanced cometfall (DC 56), intensified divine retribution (DC 55), consecrated purified sacred firestorm (DC 58) (x2), quickened visions of the future.
11th (5+1/day) – quickened amber sarcophagus, consecrated purified quickened cometfall (DC 56), sacred searing erupt (DC 59), quickened greater shield of lathander, quickened light of purity, quickened sunbeam (DC 57) (D).
10th (5+1/day) – quickened crown of brilliance, consecrated fire-substituted searing earthquake (DC 58), quickened heal (DC 56) (D), empowered fire-substituted stormrage.
9th (7+1/day) – heightened eternal rest (DC 56), quickened flame strike (DC 55), feast of champions, gate, mantle of the fiery spirit, prismatic sphere (DC 59) (D), summon elemental monolith, undeath’s eternal foe.
8th (8+1/day) – chain dispel, holy aura (DC 58) (D), illusion purge, know true name (DC 58), mass restoration, mass valiant spirit, spread of contentment (DC 58), shun the dark chaos (DC 58), consecrated purified wages of sin.
7th (8+1/day) – bastion of good, control weather, fortunate fate, quickened light of Venya (DC 53), rain of embers (DC 57), radiant assault (x2) (DC 57), rejuvenating light (DC 57), sunbeam (DC 57) (D).
6th(8+1/day) – chasing perfection, consecrate battlefield, quickened deific vengeance (DC 52), heal (DC 56) (D), fiery vision (x2), ghost trap, light of courage (DC 56), vigorous circle.
5th (9+1/day) – atonement, blistering radiance (DC 55), chaav’s laugh (DC 55), condemnation (DC 55), crown of flame, divine agility, divine retribution (DC 55), searing meteoric strike (DC 54) (x2), valiant fury (D).
4th (10+1/day) – aligned aura (DC 54), assay spell resistance (x2), aura of the sun (x2), channeled divine health, cure critical wounds, holy smite (DC 54) (D), recitation, sacred haven, sunmantle.
3rd (10+1/day) – cure serious wounds, fell the greatest foe, find the gap, flamebound symbol (x2), forced manifestation (DC 53), heart’s ease, mass align weapon, phieran’s resolve, prayer (D), protection from negative energy.
2nd (10+1/day) – detect aberration, eagle’s splendor, healing lorecall, make whole, mark of doom (x2), mark of judgment (x2) (DC 52), master’s touch, share talents, shield other (D).
1st (10+1/day) – bless water, conviction, detect taint, divine favor, endure elements (D), exorcism (x2) (DC 51), nimbus of light, ray of hope, ray of resurgence, vision of heaven (DC 51).
Orisons (6/day) – create water, cure minor wounds, guidance, light, purify food and drink, read magic.
Epic Spells Prepared 6 divine, up to Spellcraft DC 122
Epic Spells Known epic mage armor, epic repulsion, epic spell reflection, global warming, glorious light of renewal, greater ruin, hellball, nailed to the sky, nimbus, rain of fire, ruin, superb dispelling. Lathander has additionally created many epic spells that bring light and life, as well as bring ruin to the undead.
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Abilities Str 50, Dex 42, Con 50, Int 36, Wis 51, Cha 50
SQ avatar, bane of the restless, celestial fortitude, celestial minion 1/day, creative fire +20, divine grace, divinity, immortality, lathander’s light, resist fiendish lure
Feats Awesome Smite, Battle Blessing, Cleave, Consecrate Spell, Corona (Will DC 62), Divine Censure (Will DC 62), Divine Might, Divine Vengeance, Empower Spell, Energize Spell, Energy Substitution (fire), Extra Turning, Fiery Spell, Heighten Spell, Heighten Turning, Holy Potency, Improved Critical (heavy mace), Improved Initiative, Improved Turning, Maximize Spell (B), Power Attack, Purify Spell, Quicken Spell, Quicken Turning, Sacred Vengeance, Sanctify Martial Strike, Searing Spell, Weapon Focus (heavy mace), Words of Creation (B)
Epic Feats Enhance Spell, Epic Divine Might, Epic Divine Vengeance, Epic Spellcasting (B), Great Smiting (x2), Improved Heighten Spell, Intensify Spell, Intensify Turning, Multiturning, Positive Energy Aura, Superior Initiative
Salient Divine Abilities Area Divine Shield (170 hp in a 170 ft square or a 17 ft sphere or hemisphere), Automatic Metamagic (energize spell), Banestrike (evil outsiders), Banestrike (undead), Call Creatures (17 celestials with up to 37 HD), Divine Inspiration (hope), Divine Fast Healing (x2), Divine Paladin, Divine Spellcasting, Divine Weapon Focus (heavy mace), Divine Weapon Specialization (heavy mace), Earthmother’s Boon (unique salient divine ability), Energy Burst (170 ft, 136 fire damage), Energy Storm (170 ft, 17 holy and 17 positive), Gift of Life, Indomitable Strength, Life and Death (Fort DC 79 or die, 340 damage on a successful save), Lord of the Dawn (unique salient divine ability), Mass Life and Death (any number of creatures no more than 17 miles apart, Fort DC 79 or die, 340 damage on a successful save), Power of Nature, Rejuvenation (-17, -34 in Morninglory), Undead Mastery (17 creatures)
Skills Appraise 70 (78 paintings and sculptures), Bluff 82, Concentration 125, Craft (painting) 138, Craft (sculpting) 138, Diplomacy 143, Gather Information 72, Heal 125, Jump 84, Intimidate 86, Knowledge (arcana) 80, Knowledge (history) 92, Knowledge (nobility and royalty) 118, Knowledge (religion) 118, Knowledge (the planes) 118, Listen 77, Perform 145, Ride 62, Search 75, Sense Motive 82, Spot 77, Spellcraft 122, Survival 67 (75 extraplanar), Swim 82, Tumble 67
Possessions +8 full plate of the celestial battalion, dawnspeaker
Aura of Radiance (Su) The light of Lathander shines perpetually. No matter how dark it is, the Morninglord sees as though the conditions were identical to the outdoors at sunrise. This ability functions like darkvision out to 60 feet, except that he sees in color. Lathander also has a +2 sacred bonus on saving throws against spells with the darkness descriptor and a +2 sacred bonus to Armor Class against attacks from undead creatures.
Beam of Sunlight (Sp) Lathander can evoke a dazzling beam of intense light (the equivalent of a beam from the sunbeam spell) once per round as a full-round action as long as his radiant aura is active as a 56th level caster.
Blessing of Dawn (Su) The sight of the morning sun is an inspirational vision for the Morninglord. Lathander gains a +2 morale bonus on Will saves from sunrise until noon. This ability is in effect only while he can see the sun; the effect is suppressed any time he is deprived of the sight of it during this period.
Celestial Fortitude (Su) Lathander’s endurance and fortitude are enhanced against fiendish attacks. He has a +2 sacred bonus to all Fortitude saving throws against effects from evil outsiders and evil spells. Additionally, if he makes a successful Fortitude saving throw against an effect from an evil spell or evil outsider that normally deals half damage or partial effects on a successful save, he instead takes no damage and suffers no partial effects.
Celestial Minion (Sp) Lathander may summon a Medium or smaller size celestial animal (with the celestial creature template) as a standard action usable once a day. This celestial minion carries the same responsibilities as a paladin's special mount and gains the same bonuses to its HD, natural armor, Strength, Intelligence, and other special abilities that a paladin's special mount has, but only remains for 20 hours before returning to the outer plane from whence it came.
Creative Fire (Ex) The Morninglord is a creative, expressive deity. He has a bonus equal to his morninglord level on all Craft and Perform checks.
Divinity Lathander is an embodiment of ancient divine power. As such, reality is his to shape as he sees fit.
Alter Reality: Lathander may alter reality within the bounds of his portfolio. This functions as a wish spell that requires no XP or material cost. The limits of this ability are fully described in Deities and Demigods. He can additionally alter his size from Fine to Colossal and may additionally alter up to 100 pounds of objects in the same manner.
Avatar: Lathander can have up to 20 avatars at any given time. The Morninglord appears as a golden-skinned athletic male of exceeding beauty who has just fully entered early manhood. He wears noble robes constructed in the colors of the dawn, carries himself proudly, and dresses in the finest golden plate armor if attending to matters that might turn violent.
Divine Blast: Lathander can create a ray of divine power that extends for up to 17 miles, dealing up to 444 points of damage, as a ranged touch attack with no saving throw. Lathander can unleash a divine blast 23 times per day, and alter the visual, auditory and sensation-based qualities of his divine blast as he desires. Lathander’s divine blasts generally take the form of rays of fiery sunlight.
Divine Shield: As a free action 23 times per day, Lathander can create a shield that lasts 10 minutes and stops 170 points of damage from attacks. Once the shield stops that much damage, it collapses. Any damage Lathander is naturally immune to does not count towards the shield’s limits.
Earthmother’s Boon (unique salient divine ability) Chauntea is Lathander’s lover and has bestowed a degree of protection over her consort. By her grace, the Lord of the Dawn cannot be harmed by any nonmagical plant or any creature with less than 33 Hit Dice with the plant subtype. Epic creatures and creatures with equal or more than 33 Hit Dice must succeed at a Will save (DC 79) to harm the Morninglord.
Greater Turning (Su) Six times per day, Lathander may use greater turning as the granted power of the Sun domain. This is superseded by his Lord of the Dawn salient divine ability.
Lathander's Light (Su) Whenever Lathander casts a spell with the light descriptor, its area is doubled.
Lord of the Dawn (unique salient divine ability) Lathander is the sun. He is the light that drives back the darkness, the brilliant spark that lights the way out of night and the creative brilliance within every artist. His dominion over light and the sun, both physical and metaphysical, grants him a variety of powers as listed below:
Fires of the Sun: The light of the sun shields Lathander’s body. This protection renders Lathander immune to all forms of magical and nonmagical fire, with searing effects only dealing half damage. In addition, spells and spell-like abilities cast by Lathander from the Sun domain, or with the [fire] and [light] descriptors, are similarly enhanced and are always intensified.
Radiance of the Dawn: Lathander can shed light equal to full sunlight in a 17-mile emanation from his body that counters and dispels all Darkness effects unless created by a higher ranked deity. Undead and evil outsiders caught within the radius must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 79) or be destroyed and turned into dust. Creatures vulnerable to sunlight suffer a -17 penalty to the saving throw. A successful saving throw still deals 17d8 points of damage, while creatures vulnerable to sunlight suffer 17d12 points of damage.
Spark of Creativity: Lathander is the commander of creativity, the inspiration and muse for craftsmen and artists throughout the Realms. 17 times per day, Lathander may bestow a +17 divine bonus to any Craft or Performance check, or the Efficient Item Creation feat, to up to 17 creatures for the next 24 hours. Performances and non-magical items crafted beneath the aegis of this ability always earn three times the normal gold amount and have three times the listed market price in cost. Magical items crafted with the benefit of this ability add +17,000 gp to the listed market price and increase any numeric benefit (enhancement bonuses for the purpose of attack and damage rolls, armor and save bonuses and so forth) by +4.
Spurn the Profane: Lathander uses the totality of his character level to determine the effectiveness of his ability to smite evil, turn outsiders and undead as well as any of his feats that affect the undead. His turn attempts resolve as greater turnings (as the granted power of the Sun domain). In addition, Lathander adds his paladin spells to his clerical spell list, using the sum of both lists to determine his caster level.
Wrath of the Dawn: As a standard action Lathander can generate a ray of scorching light that extends for up to 17 miles and inflicts 17d6 points of damage, half fire and half divine. As a full attack option, he can generate up to four rays, and undead and evil outsiders suffer 17d12 points of damage. In addition, Lathander can duplicate the effects of any spell with the [light] descriptor as a standard action. (CL 65th, DC 50 plus spell level).
Maximize Turning (Su) Once per day, Lathander can automatically achieve the maximum possible result on a turning damage roll. This is superseded by his natural divine powers.
Radiant Aura (Su) Three times per day, Lathander can emanate an aura of brilliant light that weakens undead creatures for one minute. The aura provides bright illumination in a 30-foot radius around him, and shadowy illumination for an additional 30 feet beyond that. Creatures that take penalties in bright light also take them while within the radius of the bright aura. In addition, undead creatures within the radius of bright light take a —2 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws. Activating the radiant aura is a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. While his radiant aura is active, Lathander casts spells with the light descriptor at +2 caster level. The radiant aura is the equivalent of a 5th-level spell with the light descriptor for the purpose of interacting with spells and effects with the darkness descriptor.
Rejuvenation of the Morn (Su) Dawn is a powerful symbol of rebirth and renewal. Once per tenday, Lathander may spend one uninterrupted hour before dawn in prayer. As soon as the sun rises after this prayer ritual, he gains one benefit of his choice from the following list.
· Healing up to full normal hit points (self only).
· Removal of any poisons or diseases (self only). This effect does not restore ability damage or ability drain caused by poison or disease.
· Full restoration of ability damage due to one poison or disease.
If his prayers are interrupted for even a single round, the attempt is ruined, and he must wait a full tenday to try again.
Resist Fiendish Lure (Su) Lathander has a +4 sacred bonus to all saving throws against mind-affecting attacks of evil outsiders.
Possessions
Dawnspeaker, Lathander’s gold-and-ivory mace, is a +10 fiery blast ghost strike mighty disruption heavy mace of holy power and evil outsider and undead dread. When held by the Morninglord, it also functions as a holy devastator. The DC of the weapon’s disruption and dread abilities is 79, and creatures vulnerable to sunlight suffer a -17 penalty to saving throws made to resist Dawnspeaker’s abilities. Lathander is known to loan out Dawnspeaker to questors and warriors he deems worthy and can call it back to his hand from anywhere in the cosmos.
The Morninglord also occasionally wears a set of golden +8 full plate with the powers of an armor of the celestial battalion. The bonuses are not reflected in the above statistics.
Other Divine Powers As a greater deity, Lathander automatically receives the best possible result on any die roll he makes (including attack rolls, damage, checks, and saves). He treats a 1 on an attack roll or saving throw normally and not as an automatic failure. He is immortal. Senses Lathander can see (using normal vision or darkvision), hear, touch, and smell at a distance of 17 miles. As a standard action, he can perceive anything within 17 miles of his worshippers, holy sites, objects, or any location where one of his titles or name was spoken in the last hour. He can extend his senses to up to 20 locations at once. He can block the sensing power of deities of his rank or lower at up to two remote locations at once for 17 hours. Portfolio Sense Lathander is aware of any event under the light of the sun, competition or act of artistry of the number of people involved up to 17 weeks in the past and 17 weeks in the future. Automatic Actions Lathander can use any skill related to his portfolio as a free action if the DC for the task is 30 or lower. He can perform up to twenty such free actions each round. Create Magic Items Lathander can craft any magical item that associated with heat and light, aids in self-empowerment, preserves or restores vitality or harms the undead, including artifacts.
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Eternal Rest [Ravenloft: Legacy of Blood 71]
Necromancy
Level: Cleric 6
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray (see text)
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will partial (see text)
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell creates a ray of golden light that destroys one undead creature’s material body (if it has one), causing it to crumble to dust, which is then wafted away in a swirling breeze. This spell affects incorporeal undead without the usual incorporeal miss chance, and such a creature merely winks out of existence if it fails its save. If the target makes a successful save, it still takes 6d6 points of damage. If the creature has a special quality that allows it to return after destruction (such as a vampire’s fast healing power or a ghost’s rejuvenation power), the creature gains a bonus equal to its Charisma modifier on its saving throw. If such a creature fails its saving throw against this spell, it must make a successful Will save at the same DC (also with its Charisma modifier as a bonus) to return. If the creature’s method of return normally requires a saving throw (as a ghost’s rejuvenation power does), the creature must first make that saving throw, then make the Will saving throw against this spell.
You can improve your chance of success by presenting at least one object or substance that the target hates, fears, or otherwise finds repulsive or painful (such as a mirror and bud of garlic for a vampire). For each such object or substance, you gain a +1 bonus on your caster level check to overcome the target’s spell resistance (if any), and the spell’s saving throw DC increases by +1. A particular creature’s history might suggest additional objects or substances that would make the spell more effective.
This spell can also be cast when an undead creature has been physically destroyed and its remains are not present. In this case, the spell must be aimed at the spot where the creature was destroyed, and it must be used within 1 minute of the undead creature’s destruction. No attack roll is required for this use of the spell.
This spell can destroy an undead darklord’s physical form, but it cannot prevent the darklord from returning.
Rainbow [Dragon Magazine 321 68]
Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Cleric 6, Radiance 6
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Effect: Rainbow bow, quiver, and arrows
Duration: 1 hour / level
Saving Throw: No
Spell Resistance: Yes
A rainbow-hued longbow appears in your hand, along with a full quiver of arrows fletched with different colors. The longbow is considered a +1 longbow that the caster is proficient with. The quiver holds an endless supply of seven different colored arrows, each being made of a different material and having the following effects:
Red: +1 elemental-bane adamantine arrows.
Orange: +1 construct-bane silver arrows.
Yellow: +1 plant-bane evil-aligned arrows.
Green: +1 magical beast-bane good-aligned arrows.
Blue: +1 undead-bane lawful-aligned arrows.
Indigo: +1 aberration-bane chaotic-aligned arrows.
Violet: +1 dragon-bane cold iron arrows.
Only the caster is able to use the bow, quiver, and arrows. They appear immediately back in the caster’s possession if dropped or given away, though the caster may drop the bow and quiver to use another item, but can rematerialize them at will, as a free action. The bow, quiver, and arrows have no weight and cannot be disarmed or sundered.
Know True Name [Kalamar: Player’s Guide 3.0 177]
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Cleric 8
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 action
Ranged: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. / 2 levels)
Target: One fiend
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You force a fiend to tell you its true name. Once you know a fiend’s true name, all spells that you cast at that creature have their save DCs increase by +4. You also gain a +4 on all checks to penetrate the creature’s spell resistance.
submitted by LordofBones89 to Forgotten_Realms [link] [comments]
The Morninglord, Commander of Creativity, Patron to Spring and Eternal Youth, Mentor of Self-Perfection, Bringer of the Dawn, Lord of Birth and Renewal
Greater Power of Elysium
Symbol Sunrise made of pink, red, and yellow gems, or a simple rosy pink disk
Realm Morninglory (Elysium/Eronia)
Alignment Neutral Good
Aliases none
Superior none (AO)
Allies Chauntea (lover), Deneir, Eldath, Gond, Ilmater, Kelemvor, Llira, Lurue, Mielikki, Milil, Oghma, Paladine, Selune, Siamorphe, Silvanus, Sune, Torm, Tyche (dead), Tymora, Tyr, Ushas
Foes Bane, Beshaba, Bhaal (dead), Cyric, Ibrandul (dead), Iyachtu Xvim (dead), Loviatar, Moander (dead), Myrkul (dead), Shar, Talona
Servants none
Servitor Creatures butterflies, celestials of all types, elysian dragons, hollyphants, radiant creatures, robins (normal and celestial), sanctified creatures, sun peacocks (normal and celestial), sunwyrms (good aligned only)
Manifestations an intense and rosy radiance that appears around objects to indicate special qualities or at confusing or dangerous junctures to indicate a safe or preferred path, and that causes those people it surrounds to be telekinetically pushed out of harmful situations, healed of all wounds, purged of any diseases, poisons, foreign objects, magical and nonmagical afflictions and deleterious effects, magical or psionic compulsions, fear, and curses, causes resurrection effects to be automatically successful, and transmits messages
Signs of Favor aster blossoms, an intense and rosy radiance with the same qualities as his manifestation, sun peacock feathers
Worshipers Aristocrats, artists, athletes, farmers, hunters of the undead, merchants, monks of the Sun Soul, peasants, performers, the youthful
Cleric Alignments LG, NG, CG
Specialty Priests Morninglord
Holy Days Midsummer morning, the mornings of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes
Important Ceremonies Song of Dawn; contracts, marriages and promises made at dawn, funerals for those not meant to be raised or resurrected
Portfolio Athletics, birth, creativity, dawn, renewal, self-perfection, spring, vitality, youth
Domains Community, Courage, Endurance, Good, Glory, Hope, Life, Protection, Radiance, Renewal, Strength, Zeal
Favored Weapon Dawnspeaker (heavy or light mace)
LATHANDER
Male Sentinel 20, Cleric 20, Morninglord 20, Master of Radiance 5
NG Medium Outsider (Extraplanar, Good)
Divine Rank 17
Init 44 (+16 Dex, +8 Superior Initiative); Senses 17-mile-radius; Listen 77, Spot 77; remote sensing (20 locations), portfolio sense
Aura divine aura (DC 78), courage (100 ft, +8 saves against fear), radiant 3/day; Languages can communicate with any living creature; Words of Creation
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AC 105, touch 57, flat-footed 95, undead 107 (+18 armor, +20 deflection, +10 Dex, +17 divine, +30 natural)
hp 1,860 (20d10 + 45d8 plus 1300), fast healing 74; divine shield 23/day (170 hp); renewal 1/day (if fall below 0 but less than -10 hit points regain 1d8 +20 hp); DR 40/epic, evil and adamantine
Immune ability damage, ability drain, banishment, death effects, disease, disintegration, electricity, energy drain, fire, imprisonment, mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, rebuking, sleep, sonic, stunning, transmutation, and turning
Resist acid 37, cold 37; SR 81
Fort 111 Ref 101 Will 105; +2 against evil outsiders and undead, +4 against mind-affecting effects from evil outsiders, +5 against evil spells or spells from evil characters
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Speed 60 ft. (12 squares)
Melee dawnspeaker 115/110/105/100 (55 plus 18 fire plus 18 holy plus 1 negative level vs evil plus 48 vs evil outsiders and undead plus undead disruption [Fort DC 79 or die]/19-20/x2 plus 36 fire plus 36 holy plus 2 negative levels vs good plus death [Fort DC 79, evil outsiders and undead] plus undead disruption [Fort DC 79 or die]), +8 atk vs evil outsiders and undead; or
Melee spell 80 or
Ranged spell 76
Base Atk +43; Grp +63
Atk Options Awesome Smite, Cleave, Holy Potency, Power Attack; smite evil 24/day (+20 atk, +455 damage)
Special Actions alter reality, divine blast (444 damage) 23/day, feat of endurance 1/day (+30 Con for 1 minute), destroy evil outsiders and undead 27/day as a 66th level cleric (turning check 73, turning damage 105; Heighten Turning, Intensify Turning, Multiturning, Quicken Turning), protective ward 1/day (+65 resistance bonus to one saving throw for one hour), surge of hope 1/day (when failing a skill check, attack roll, or saving throw, add 1d6 to the result), touch of life 1/day (1d6 +65 temporary hp to a single creature for one hours), zeal 1/day (take 20 on a skill check, except on checks are not normally allowed to take 20, without increasing the amount of time needed to make the check); Battle Blessing, Corona (Will DC 62), Divine Censure (Will DC 62), Epic Divine Might, Epic Divine Vengeance, Sacred Vengeance
Combat Gear dawnspeaker
Divine Spell-like Abilities (CL 65th; +1 good spells; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified)
At will – aid, animate objects, animate plants, antimagic field, atonement, bear’s endurance, bigby’s clenched fist, bigby’s crushing hand, bigby’s grasping hand, blade barrier (DC 53), bless, bless weapon, bolt of glory, bull’s strength, charm person (DC 48), cloak of bravery, color spray (DC 48), commune, consecrate, crown of glory (DC 55), death ward, dismissal (DC 51), dispel evil (DC 52), disrupt undead, disrupting weapon (DC 52), endure elements, enlarge person, widened faerie fire, flame strike (DC 52), fire shield, fire seeds (DC 53), freedom, gate, globe of invulnerability, good hope, greater cloak of bravery, greater dispel magic, greater heroism, greater planar ally, greater restoration, greater status, greater teleport, heat metal (DC 49), helping hand, heroes’ feast, heroism, hide from undead (DC 48), holy aura (DC 55), holy smite (DC 51), holy sword, holy word (DC 54), hypnotic pattern (DC 49), iron body, lesser restoration, lion’s roar (DC 56), magic vestment, mass bear’s endurance, mass heal (DC 56), mind blank, mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion, plant growth, plane shift (DC 52), polymorph any object (DC 55), prayer, prismatic sphere (DC 56), prismatic spray (DC 54), prismatic wall (DC 56), protection from energy, protection from evil, rary’s telepathic bond, rainbow, rainbow pattern (DC 51), refreshment, refuge, regenerate, reincarnate (DC 51), remove disease, remove fear, repulsion (DC 54), righteous might, sanctuary (DC 48), scintillating pattern, searing light, sustain, spell immunity, spell resistance, status, stoneskin, sympathy (DC 55), summon monster IX (good creatures only), sunbeam (DC 54), sunburst (DC 55), tongues.
1/day – calm emotions (DC 51)
Master of Radiance Spell-like Abilities (CL 56th; +1 good spells; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified; only usable during aura of radiance)
1/round – beam of sunlight, searing light
Morninglord Spell-like Abilities (CL 54th; +1 good spells; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified)
1/day – daylight, searing ray (as searing light, but automatically empowered against undead)
Cleric Spells per Day (CL 54th; +1 good spells; all spells are energized and maximized; all [fire] and [light] spells are intensified)
20th (3+1/day) – heightened intensified end to strife (DC 63) (x2), heightened last judgement (DC 70), enhanced heightened intensified mass heal (DC 59) (D).
19th (3+1/day) – heightened miracle (DC 69) (x2), consecrated intensified purified sacred storm of vengeance (DC 59), enhanced empowered heightened sunburst (DC 63) (D).
18th (3+1/day) – consecrated enhanced heightened purified flame strike (DC 62) (x2) (D), intensified quickened righteous smite (DC 57), enhanced intensified righteous smite (DC 57).
17th (3+1/day) – heightened holy word (DC 67) (D), heightened know true name (DC 67), empowered intensified lion’s roar (DC 58), heightened quickened miracle (DC 63).
16th (4+1/day) – intensified mass heal (DC 59), intensified righteous exile (DC 59) (x2), intensified storm of vengeance (DC 59), enhanced quickened sunburst (DC 58) (D).
15th (4+1/day) – empowered intensified blade barrier (DC 56) (D), enhanced quickened searing erupt (DC 59) (x2), intensified mass cure critical wounds, heightened righteous glare (DC 65).
14th (4+1/day) – enhanced fire-substituted fiery searing lion’s roar (DC 58) (D), heightened quickened holy word (DC 60) (x2), empowered quickened sunburst (DC 58) (x2).
13th (4+1/day) – enhanced quickened flame strike (DC 55) (D), quickened implosion (DC 59) (x2), quickened sublime revelry, intensified weight of sin (DC 56).
12th (5+1/day) – empowered enhanced blade barrier (DC 56) (D), empowered enhanced cometfall (DC 56), intensified divine retribution (DC 55), consecrated purified sacred firestorm (DC 58) (x2), quickened visions of the future.
11th (5+1/day) – quickened amber sarcophagus, consecrated purified quickened cometfall (DC 56), sacred searing erupt (DC 59), quickened greater shield of lathander, quickened light of purity, quickened sunbeam (DC 57) (D).
10th (5+1/day) – quickened crown of brilliance, consecrated fire-substituted searing earthquake (DC 58), quickened heal (DC 56) (D), empowered fire-substituted stormrage.
9th (7+1/day) – heightened eternal rest (DC 56), quickened flame strike (DC 55), feast of champions, gate, mantle of the fiery spirit, prismatic sphere (DC 59) (D), summon elemental monolith, undeath’s eternal foe.
8th (8+1/day) – chain dispel, holy aura (DC 58) (D), illusion purge, know true name (DC 58), mass restoration, mass valiant spirit, spread of contentment (DC 58), shun the dark chaos (DC 58), consecrated purified wages of sin.
7th (8+1/day) – bastion of good, control weather, fortunate fate, quickened light of Venya (DC 53), rain of embers (DC 57), radiant assault (x2) (DC 57), rejuvenating light (DC 57), sunbeam (DC 57) (D).
6th(8+1/day) – chasing perfection, consecrate battlefield, quickened deific vengeance (DC 52), heal (DC 56) (D), fiery vision (x2), ghost trap, light of courage (DC 56), vigorous circle.
5th (9+1/day) – atonement, blistering radiance (DC 55), chaav’s laugh (DC 55), condemnation (DC 55), crown of flame, divine agility, divine retribution (DC 55), searing meteoric strike (DC 54) (x2), valiant fury (D).
4th (10+1/day) – aligned aura (DC 54), assay spell resistance (x2), aura of the sun (x2), channeled divine health, cure critical wounds, holy smite (DC 54) (D), recitation, sacred haven, sunmantle.
3rd (10+1/day) – cure serious wounds, fell the greatest foe, find the gap, flamebound symbol (x2), forced manifestation (DC 53), heart’s ease, mass align weapon, phieran’s resolve, prayer (D), protection from negative energy.
2nd (10+1/day) – detect aberration, eagle’s splendor, healing lorecall, make whole, mark of doom (x2), mark of judgment (x2) (DC 52), master’s touch, share talents, shield other (D).
1st (10+1/day) – bless water, conviction, detect taint, divine favor, endure elements (D), exorcism (x2) (DC 51), nimbus of light, ray of hope, ray of resurgence, vision of heaven (DC 51).
Orisons (6/day) – create water, cure minor wounds, guidance, light, purify food and drink, read magic.
Epic Spells Prepared 6 divine, up to Spellcraft DC 122
Epic Spells Known epic mage armor, epic repulsion, epic spell reflection, global warming, glorious light of renewal, greater ruin, hellball, nailed to the sky, nimbus, rain of fire, ruin, superb dispelling. Lathander has additionally created many epic spells that bring light and life, as well as bring ruin to the undead.
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Abilities Str 50, Dex 42, Con 50, Int 36, Wis 51, Cha 50
SQ avatar, bane of the restless, celestial fortitude, celestial minion 1/day, creative fire +20, divine grace, divinity, immortality, lathander’s light, resist fiendish lure
Feats Awesome Smite, Battle Blessing, Cleave, Consecrate Spell, Corona (Will DC 62), Divine Censure (Will DC 62), Divine Might, Divine Vengeance, Empower Spell, Energize Spell, Energy Substitution (fire), Extra Turning, Fiery Spell, Heighten Spell, Heighten Turning, Holy Potency, Improved Critical (heavy mace), Improved Initiative, Improved Turning, Maximize Spell (B), Power Attack, Purify Spell, Quicken Spell, Quicken Turning, Sacred Vengeance, Sanctify Martial Strike, Searing Spell, Weapon Focus (heavy mace), Words of Creation (B)
Epic Feats Enhance Spell, Epic Divine Might, Epic Divine Vengeance, Epic Spellcasting (B), Great Smiting (x2), Improved Heighten Spell, Intensify Spell, Intensify Turning, Multiturning, Positive Energy Aura, Superior Initiative
Salient Divine Abilities Area Divine Shield (170 hp in a 170 ft square or a 17 ft sphere or hemisphere), Automatic Metamagic (energize spell), Banestrike (evil outsiders), Banestrike (undead), Call Creatures (17 celestials with up to 37 HD), Divine Inspiration (hope), Divine Fast Healing (x2), Divine Paladin, Divine Spellcasting, Divine Weapon Focus (heavy mace), Divine Weapon Specialization (heavy mace), Earthmother’s Boon (unique salient divine ability), Energy Burst (170 ft, 136 fire damage), Energy Storm (170 ft, 17 holy and 17 positive), Gift of Life, Indomitable Strength, Life and Death (Fort DC 79 or die, 340 damage on a successful save), Lord of the Dawn (unique salient divine ability), Mass Life and Death (any number of creatures no more than 17 miles apart, Fort DC 79 or die, 340 damage on a successful save), Power of Nature, Rejuvenation (-17, -34 in Morninglory), Undead Mastery (17 creatures)
Skills Appraise 70 (78 paintings and sculptures), Bluff 82, Concentration 125, Craft (painting) 138, Craft (sculpting) 138, Diplomacy 143, Gather Information 72, Heal 125, Jump 84, Intimidate 86, Knowledge (arcana) 80, Knowledge (history) 92, Knowledge (nobility and royalty) 118, Knowledge (religion) 118, Knowledge (the planes) 118, Listen 77, Perform 145, Ride 62, Search 75, Sense Motive 82, Spot 77, Spellcraft 122, Survival 67 (75 extraplanar), Swim 82, Tumble 67
Possessions +8 full plate of the celestial battalion, dawnspeaker
Aura of Radiance (Su) The light of Lathander shines perpetually. No matter how dark it is, the Morninglord sees as though the conditions were identical to the outdoors at sunrise. This ability functions like darkvision out to 60 feet, except that he sees in color. Lathander also has a +2 sacred bonus on saving throws against spells with the darkness descriptor and a +2 sacred bonus to Armor Class against attacks from undead creatures.
Beam of Sunlight (Sp) Lathander can evoke a dazzling beam of intense light (the equivalent of a beam from the sunbeam spell) once per round as a full-round action as long as his radiant aura is active as a 56th level caster.
Blessing of Dawn (Su) The sight of the morning sun is an inspirational vision for the Morninglord. Lathander gains a +2 morale bonus on Will saves from sunrise until noon. This ability is in effect only while he can see the sun; the effect is suppressed any time he is deprived of the sight of it during this period.
Celestial Fortitude (Su) Lathander’s endurance and fortitude are enhanced against fiendish attacks. He has a +2 sacred bonus to all Fortitude saving throws against effects from evil outsiders and evil spells. Additionally, if he makes a successful Fortitude saving throw against an effect from an evil spell or evil outsider that normally deals half damage or partial effects on a successful save, he instead takes no damage and suffers no partial effects.
Celestial Minion (Sp) Lathander may summon a Medium or smaller size celestial animal (with the celestial creature template) as a standard action usable once a day. This celestial minion carries the same responsibilities as a paladin's special mount and gains the same bonuses to its HD, natural armor, Strength, Intelligence, and other special abilities that a paladin's special mount has, but only remains for 20 hours before returning to the outer plane from whence it came.
Creative Fire (Ex) The Morninglord is a creative, expressive deity. He has a bonus equal to his morninglord level on all Craft and Perform checks.
Divinity Lathander is an embodiment of ancient divine power. As such, reality is his to shape as he sees fit.
Alter Reality: Lathander may alter reality within the bounds of his portfolio. This functions as a wish spell that requires no XP or material cost. The limits of this ability are fully described in Deities and Demigods. He can additionally alter his size from Fine to Colossal and may additionally alter up to 100 pounds of objects in the same manner.
Avatar: Lathander can have up to 20 avatars at any given time. The Morninglord appears as a golden-skinned athletic male of exceeding beauty who has just fully entered early manhood. He wears noble robes constructed in the colors of the dawn, carries himself proudly, and dresses in the finest golden plate armor if attending to matters that might turn violent.
Divine Blast: Lathander can create a ray of divine power that extends for up to 17 miles, dealing up to 444 points of damage, as a ranged touch attack with no saving throw. Lathander can unleash a divine blast 23 times per day, and alter the visual, auditory and sensation-based qualities of his divine blast as he desires. Lathander’s divine blasts generally take the form of rays of fiery sunlight.
Divine Shield: As a free action 23 times per day, Lathander can create a shield that lasts 10 minutes and stops 170 points of damage from attacks. Once the shield stops that much damage, it collapses. Any damage Lathander is naturally immune to does not count towards the shield’s limits.
Earthmother’s Boon (unique salient divine ability) Chauntea is Lathander’s lover and has bestowed a degree of protection over her consort. By her grace, the Lord of the Dawn cannot be harmed by any nonmagical plant or any creature with less than 33 Hit Dice with the plant subtype. Epic creatures and creatures with equal or more than 33 Hit Dice must succeed at a Will save (DC 79) to harm the Morninglord.
Greater Turning (Su) Six times per day, Lathander may use greater turning as the granted power of the Sun domain. This is superseded by his Lord of the Dawn salient divine ability.
Lathander's Light (Su) Whenever Lathander casts a spell with the light descriptor, its area is doubled.
Lord of the Dawn (unique salient divine ability) Lathander is the sun. He is the light that drives back the darkness, the brilliant spark that lights the way out of night and the creative brilliance within every artist. His dominion over light and the sun, both physical and metaphysical, grants him a variety of powers as listed below:
Fires of the Sun: The light of the sun shields Lathander’s body. This protection renders Lathander immune to all forms of magical and nonmagical fire, with searing effects only dealing half damage. In addition, spells and spell-like abilities cast by Lathander from the Sun domain, or with the [fire] and [light] descriptors, are similarly enhanced and are always intensified.
Radiance of the Dawn: Lathander can shed light equal to full sunlight in a 17-mile emanation from his body that counters and dispels all Darkness effects unless created by a higher ranked deity. Undead and evil outsiders caught within the radius must succeed at a Fortitude save (DC 79) or be destroyed and turned into dust. Creatures vulnerable to sunlight suffer a -17 penalty to the saving throw. A successful saving throw still deals 17d8 points of damage, while creatures vulnerable to sunlight suffer 17d12 points of damage.
Spark of Creativity: Lathander is the commander of creativity, the inspiration and muse for craftsmen and artists throughout the Realms. 17 times per day, Lathander may bestow a +17 divine bonus to any Craft or Performance check, or the Efficient Item Creation feat, to up to 17 creatures for the next 24 hours. Performances and non-magical items crafted beneath the aegis of this ability always earn three times the normal gold amount and have three times the listed market price in cost. Magical items crafted with the benefit of this ability add +17,000 gp to the listed market price and increase any numeric benefit (enhancement bonuses for the purpose of attack and damage rolls, armor and save bonuses and so forth) by +4.
Spurn the Profane: Lathander uses the totality of his character level to determine the effectiveness of his ability to smite evil, turn outsiders and undead as well as any of his feats that affect the undead. His turn attempts resolve as greater turnings (as the granted power of the Sun domain). In addition, Lathander adds his paladin spells to his clerical spell list, using the sum of both lists to determine his caster level.
Wrath of the Dawn: As a standard action Lathander can generate a ray of scorching light that extends for up to 17 miles and inflicts 17d6 points of damage, half fire and half divine. As a full attack option, he can generate up to four rays, and undead and evil outsiders suffer 17d12 points of damage. In addition, Lathander can duplicate the effects of any spell with the [light] descriptor as a standard action. (CL 65th, DC 50 plus spell level).
Maximize Turning (Su) Once per day, Lathander can automatically achieve the maximum possible result on a turning damage roll. This is superseded by his natural divine powers.
Radiant Aura (Su) Three times per day, Lathander can emanate an aura of brilliant light that weakens undead creatures for one minute. The aura provides bright illumination in a 30-foot radius around him, and shadowy illumination for an additional 30 feet beyond that. Creatures that take penalties in bright light also take them while within the radius of the bright aura. In addition, undead creatures within the radius of bright light take a —2 penalty on attack rolls, damage rolls, and saving throws. Activating the radiant aura is a free action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. While his radiant aura is active, Lathander casts spells with the light descriptor at +2 caster level. The radiant aura is the equivalent of a 5th-level spell with the light descriptor for the purpose of interacting with spells and effects with the darkness descriptor.
Rejuvenation of the Morn (Su) Dawn is a powerful symbol of rebirth and renewal. Once per tenday, Lathander may spend one uninterrupted hour before dawn in prayer. As soon as the sun rises after this prayer ritual, he gains one benefit of his choice from the following list.
· Healing up to full normal hit points (self only).
· Removal of any poisons or diseases (self only). This effect does not restore ability damage or ability drain caused by poison or disease.
· Full restoration of ability damage due to one poison or disease.
If his prayers are interrupted for even a single round, the attempt is ruined, and he must wait a full tenday to try again.
Resist Fiendish Lure (Su) Lathander has a +4 sacred bonus to all saving throws against mind-affecting attacks of evil outsiders.
Possessions
Dawnspeaker, Lathander’s gold-and-ivory mace, is a +10 fiery blast ghost strike mighty disruption heavy mace of holy power and evil outsider and undead dread. When held by the Morninglord, it also functions as a holy devastator. The DC of the weapon’s disruption and dread abilities is 79, and creatures vulnerable to sunlight suffer a -17 penalty to saving throws made to resist Dawnspeaker’s abilities. Lathander is known to loan out Dawnspeaker to questors and warriors he deems worthy and can call it back to his hand from anywhere in the cosmos.
The Morninglord also occasionally wears a set of golden +8 full plate with the powers of an armor of the celestial battalion. The bonuses are not reflected in the above statistics.
Other Divine Powers As a greater deity, Lathander automatically receives the best possible result on any die roll he makes (including attack rolls, damage, checks, and saves). He treats a 1 on an attack roll or saving throw normally and not as an automatic failure. He is immortal. Senses Lathander can see (using normal vision or darkvision), hear, touch, and smell at a distance of 17 miles. As a standard action, he can perceive anything within 17 miles of his worshippers, holy sites, objects, or any location where one of his titles or name was spoken in the last hour. He can extend his senses to up to 20 locations at once. He can block the sensing power of deities of his rank or lower at up to two remote locations at once for 17 hours. Portfolio Sense Lathander is aware of any event under the light of the sun, competition or act of artistry of the number of people involved up to 17 weeks in the past and 17 weeks in the future. Automatic Actions Lathander can use any skill related to his portfolio as a free action if the DC for the task is 30 or lower. He can perform up to twenty such free actions each round. Create Magic Items Lathander can craft any magical item that associated with heat and light, aids in self-empowerment, preserves or restores vitality or harms the undead, including artifacts.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Eternal Rest [Ravenloft: Legacy of Blood 71]
Necromancy
Level: Cleric 6
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Effect: Ray (see text)
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will partial (see text)
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell creates a ray of golden light that destroys one undead creature’s material body (if it has one), causing it to crumble to dust, which is then wafted away in a swirling breeze. This spell affects incorporeal undead without the usual incorporeal miss chance, and such a creature merely winks out of existence if it fails its save. If the target makes a successful save, it still takes 6d6 points of damage. If the creature has a special quality that allows it to return after destruction (such as a vampire’s fast healing power or a ghost’s rejuvenation power), the creature gains a bonus equal to its Charisma modifier on its saving throw. If such a creature fails its saving throw against this spell, it must make a successful Will save at the same DC (also with its Charisma modifier as a bonus) to return. If the creature’s method of return normally requires a saving throw (as a ghost’s rejuvenation power does), the creature must first make that saving throw, then make the Will saving throw against this spell.
You can improve your chance of success by presenting at least one object or substance that the target hates, fears, or otherwise finds repulsive or painful (such as a mirror and bud of garlic for a vampire). For each such object or substance, you gain a +1 bonus on your caster level check to overcome the target’s spell resistance (if any), and the spell’s saving throw DC increases by +1. A particular creature’s history might suggest additional objects or substances that would make the spell more effective.
This spell can also be cast when an undead creature has been physically destroyed and its remains are not present. In this case, the spell must be aimed at the spot where the creature was destroyed, and it must be used within 1 minute of the undead creature’s destruction. No attack roll is required for this use of the spell.
This spell can destroy an undead darklord’s physical form, but it cannot prevent the darklord from returning.
Rainbow [Dragon Magazine 321 68]
Conjuration (Creation)
Level: Cleric 6, Radiance 6
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Effect: Rainbow bow, quiver, and arrows
Duration: 1 hour / level
Saving Throw: No
Spell Resistance: Yes
A rainbow-hued longbow appears in your hand, along with a full quiver of arrows fletched with different colors. The longbow is considered a +1 longbow that the caster is proficient with. The quiver holds an endless supply of seven different colored arrows, each being made of a different material and having the following effects:
Red: +1 elemental-bane adamantine arrows.
Orange: +1 construct-bane silver arrows.
Yellow: +1 plant-bane evil-aligned arrows.
Green: +1 magical beast-bane good-aligned arrows.
Blue: +1 undead-bane lawful-aligned arrows.
Indigo: +1 aberration-bane chaotic-aligned arrows.
Violet: +1 dragon-bane cold iron arrows.
Only the caster is able to use the bow, quiver, and arrows. They appear immediately back in the caster’s possession if dropped or given away, though the caster may drop the bow and quiver to use another item, but can rematerialize them at will, as a free action. The bow, quiver, and arrows have no weight and cannot be disarmed or sundered.
Know True Name [Kalamar: Player’s Guide 3.0 177]
Enchantment (Compulsion) [Mind-Affecting]
Level: Cleric 8
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 action
Ranged: Close (25 ft. + 5 ft. / 2 levels)
Target: One fiend
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You force a fiend to tell you its true name. Once you know a fiend’s true name, all spells that you cast at that creature have their save DCs increase by +4. You also gain a +4 on all checks to penetrate the creature’s spell resistance.
2024.05.19 03:14 Jerry_217-2 [H] LOTS of Games [W] Battletoads, Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Slaps And Beans, River City Girls Zero, Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Slaps And Beans 2, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, River City Girls 2, offers
Will offer multiple games if needed. Games with * means very positive games, worth a look.
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Autonauts vs Piratebots
Deceive Inc.
Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?
Hot Brass
Arcade Paradise
Tin Can
Agent in Depth
Alchemist's Castle
Among Us
Armello
Army Men RTS
Assault Suit Leynos
Backbone
Battlecruisers
Blade Assault
Blood And Zombies
Brawlout
Builder Simulator
Cats in Time
Chicka Wars Chicken Meat
CivCity: Rome
Click and Slay
Concept Destruction
Corridor Z
Cosmonautica
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Dagon - The Eldritch Box DLC
Dead Age
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Death Squared
Demon Turf
Detached: Non-VR Edition
Double Cross
Doughlings: Arcade
Doughlings: Invasion
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
El Hijo
Eldest Souls
Emily is Away <3
Encased
Epic Chef
ETERNAL THREADS
Farming Simulator 17
Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue
First Class Trouble
Five Dates
Fling to the Finish
Forged Battalion
Fortissimo FA INTL Ver
Founders' Fortune
Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
GameGuru Classic
Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
Gloria Victis
Go Home Dinosaurs!
Going Under
Golf Gang*
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload*
Guns & Fishes
Guts and Glory
Hack 'n' Slash + Soundtrack (& Spacebase GIFT)
Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition
Heart Fragment - Book Two: Belief Fragments (Shannon & Lana)
Hellbound
HERO'S HOUR
Hexologic
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
Hokko Life
Honey, I Joined a Cult
Hyper Gunsport
I’m not a Monster
Internet Cafe Simulator
Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition
Iron Danger
Izmir: An Independence Simulator
Joggernauts
JYDGE
Killsquad
Kraken Academy!!
Labirinto 2
Lawn Mowing Simulator
Legend of Keepers
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
Let Them Come*
Little Orpheus
Lust for Darkness
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Maid of Sker
Mainlining
MEEPLE STATION
Meow Express
Merchant of the Skies
MirrorMoon EP
Monaco
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
Moon Hunters
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
NecroWorm
NeuroVoider
Neverinth
Neverout
Non-Stop Raiders
Of Orcs And Men
Orbital Racer
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Outward - The Soroboreans DLC
Override
Overture
Ozymandias
Partial Control
Pathfinders: Memories
Pathway
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
PGA TOUR 2K21 (may keep)
Pilgrims
Pill Baby
Pixplode
Planet TD
PlataGO!
PowerBeatsVR
Project Chemistry
Project Nimbus: Complete Edition
Propagation VR - Co-op
Pumped BMX +
Quadrata
Radio Commander
Railroad Corporation
Railroad Tycoon 3
Rebel Galaxy
Rebound Dodgeball Evolved
Re-Legion
Remnants of Naezith
Resident Evil Revelations (may keep)
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony
RIOT - Civil Unrest
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
ROGUE LORDS
RPG Maker VX
Rym 9000
Sakura Alien
Sakura Knight
Sakura Knight 2
Sakura Knight 3
Sakura MMO
Sakura MMO 2
Sakura MMO 3
Sakura MMO Extra
Sakura Succubus
Sakura Succubus 2
Sakura Succubus 3
Sakura Succubus 4
Sakura Succubus 5
Sakura Succubus 6
Sakura Swim Club
SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
Shady Part of Me
Shing!
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Sid Meier's Railroads!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Slinger VR
Smile For Me
Sorcerer King: Rivals
Soul Searching
Soulblight
Space Crew: Legendary Edition
Spellcaster University
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
Stacking
Starpoint Gemini Warlords
Strider*
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Sunlight
Super Chicken Catchers
Super Magbot
Surviving the Aftermath (may keep)
Sword Legacy Omen
SYMMETRY
TaniNani
Telefrag VR
The Amazing American Circus
The Beast Inside
The Deed II
The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR
The Invisible Hand
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (may keep)
The Serpent Rogue
The USB Stick Found in the Grass
Ticket to Ride
Tools Up!
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Traffic Jams
Train Station Renovation
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Underland: The Climb
UnMetal*
Vanishing Realms
War for the Overworld
WARSAW
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
White Noise 2
Worms Rumble
WRC 7
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
XCOM 2
X-COM: Complete Pack (including X-COM: UFO Defense + X-COM: Apocalypse + X-COM: Enforcer + X-COM: Interceptor + X-COM: Terror from the Deep)
XEL
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack (including X-Morph: Defense + X-Morph: Defense - European Assault + X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest + X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion)
V: Rings of Saturn
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Mad Max
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
Batman™: Arkham Knight Premium Edition
Batman™: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham City GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham Origins
Katamari Damacy REROLL (May keep)
PAC-MAN MUSEUM+
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (May keep, only good offers)
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Metal: Hellsinger (May keep, only good offers)
Non-STEAM
DOOM 64 (Bethesda.net)
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection (ORIGIN key)
Liberated (GOG key)
STAR WARS: Squadrons (Origin)
Wanderlust Travel Stories (GOG key)
Software
Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7
GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months
Music Maker EDM Edition
Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook and Starfinder Core Rulebook
Polygon Farm, Polygon City, and Polygon Prototype
GameDev.tv
Complete Unity 3D Developer
Zenva Academy
Intro to Game Development with Unity
Region is NA
My REPs: 202 successful trades, 0 dispute.
submitted by Jerry_217-2 to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Autonauts vs Piratebots
Deceive Inc.
Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?
Hot Brass
Arcade Paradise
Tin Can
Agent in Depth
Alchemist's Castle
Among Us
Armello
Army Men RTS
Assault Suit Leynos
Backbone
Battlecruisers
Blade Assault
Blood And Zombies
Brawlout
Builder Simulator
Cats in Time
Chicka Wars Chicken Meat
CivCity: Rome
Click and Slay
Concept Destruction
Corridor Z
Cosmonautica
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Dagon - The Eldritch Box DLC
Dead Age
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Death Squared
Demon Turf
Detached: Non-VR Edition
Double Cross
Doughlings: Arcade
Doughlings: Invasion
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
El Hijo
Eldest Souls
Emily is Away <3
Encased
Epic Chef
ETERNAL THREADS
Farming Simulator 17
Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue
First Class Trouble
Five Dates
Fling to the Finish
Forged Battalion
Fortissimo FA INTL Ver
Founders' Fortune
Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
GameGuru Classic
Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
Gloria Victis
Go Home Dinosaurs!
Going Under
Golf Gang*
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload*
Guns & Fishes
Guts and Glory
Hack 'n' Slash + Soundtrack (& Spacebase GIFT)
Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition
Heart Fragment - Book Two: Belief Fragments (Shannon & Lana)
Hellbound
HERO'S HOUR
Hexologic
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
Hokko Life
Honey, I Joined a Cult
Hyper Gunsport
I’m not a Monster
Internet Cafe Simulator
Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition
Iron Danger
Izmir: An Independence Simulator
Joggernauts
JYDGE
Killsquad
Kraken Academy!!
Labirinto 2
Lawn Mowing Simulator
Legend of Keepers
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
Let Them Come*
Little Orpheus
Lust for Darkness
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Maid of Sker
Mainlining
MEEPLE STATION
Meow Express
Merchant of the Skies
MirrorMoon EP
Monaco
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
Moon Hunters
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
NecroWorm
NeuroVoider
Neverinth
Neverout
Non-Stop Raiders
Of Orcs And Men
Orbital Racer
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Outward - The Soroboreans DLC
Override
Overture
Ozymandias
Partial Control
Pathfinders: Memories
Pathway
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
PGA TOUR 2K21 (may keep)
Pilgrims
Pill Baby
Pixplode
Planet TD
PlataGO!
PowerBeatsVR
Project Chemistry
Project Nimbus: Complete Edition
Propagation VR - Co-op
Pumped BMX +
Quadrata
Radio Commander
Railroad Corporation
Railroad Tycoon 3
Rebel Galaxy
Rebound Dodgeball Evolved
Re-Legion
Remnants of Naezith
Resident Evil Revelations (may keep)
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony
RIOT - Civil Unrest
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
ROGUE LORDS
RPG Maker VX
Rym 9000
Sakura Alien
Sakura Knight
Sakura Knight 2
Sakura Knight 3
Sakura MMO
Sakura MMO 2
Sakura MMO 3
Sakura MMO Extra
Sakura Succubus
Sakura Succubus 2
Sakura Succubus 3
Sakura Succubus 4
Sakura Succubus 5
Sakura Succubus 6
Sakura Swim Club
SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
Shady Part of Me
Shing!
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Sid Meier's Railroads!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Slinger VR
Smile For Me
Sorcerer King: Rivals
Soul Searching
Soulblight
Space Crew: Legendary Edition
Spellcaster University
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
Stacking
Starpoint Gemini Warlords
Strider*
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Sunlight
Super Chicken Catchers
Super Magbot
Surviving the Aftermath (may keep)
Sword Legacy Omen
SYMMETRY
TaniNani
Telefrag VR
The Amazing American Circus
The Beast Inside
The Deed II
The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR
The Invisible Hand
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (may keep)
The Serpent Rogue
The USB Stick Found in the Grass
Ticket to Ride
Tools Up!
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Traffic Jams
Train Station Renovation
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Underland: The Climb
UnMetal*
Vanishing Realms
War for the Overworld
WARSAW
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
White Noise 2
Worms Rumble
WRC 7
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
XCOM 2
X-COM: Complete Pack (including X-COM: UFO Defense + X-COM: Apocalypse + X-COM: Enforcer + X-COM: Interceptor + X-COM: Terror from the Deep)
XEL
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack (including X-Morph: Defense + X-Morph: Defense - European Assault + X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest + X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion)
V: Rings of Saturn
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Mad Max
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
Batman™: Arkham Knight Premium Edition
Batman™: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham City GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham Origins
Katamari Damacy REROLL (May keep)
PAC-MAN MUSEUM+
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (May keep, only good offers)
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Metal: Hellsinger (May keep, only good offers)
Non-STEAM
DOOM 64 (Bethesda.net)
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection (ORIGIN key)
Liberated (GOG key)
STAR WARS: Squadrons (Origin)
Wanderlust Travel Stories (GOG key)
Software
Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7
GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months
Music Maker EDM Edition
Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook and Starfinder Core Rulebook
Polygon Farm, Polygon City, and Polygon Prototype
GameDev.tv
Complete Unity 3D Developer
Zenva Academy
Intro to Game Development with Unity
Region is NA
My REPs: 202 successful trades, 0 dispute.
2024.05.19 03:14 Jerry_217-2 [H] LOTS of Games [W] Battletoads, Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Slaps And Beans, River City Girls Zero, Bud Spencer & Terence Hill - Slaps And Beans 2, Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, River City Girls 2, offers
Will offer multiple games if needed. Games with * means very positive games, worth a look.
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Autonauts vs Piratebots
Deceive Inc.
Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?
Hot Brass
Arcade Paradise
Tin Can
Agent in Depth
Alchemist's Castle
Among Us
Armello
Army Men RTS
Assault Suit Leynos
Backbone
Battlecruisers
Blade Assault
Blood And Zombies
Brawlout
Builder Simulator
Cats in Time
Chicka Wars Chicken Meat
CivCity: Rome
Click and Slay
Concept Destruction
Corridor Z
Cosmonautica
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Dagon - The Eldritch Box DLC
Dead Age
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Death Squared
Demon Turf
Detached: Non-VR Edition
Double Cross
Doughlings: Arcade
Doughlings: Invasion
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
El Hijo
Eldest Souls
Emily is Away <3
Encased
Epic Chef
ETERNAL THREADS
Farming Simulator 17
Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue
First Class Trouble
Five Dates
Fling to the Finish
Forged Battalion
Fortissimo FA INTL Ver
Founders' Fortune
Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
GameGuru Classic
Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
Gloria Victis
Go Home Dinosaurs!
Going Under
Golf Gang*
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload*
Guns & Fishes
Guts and Glory
Hack 'n' Slash + Soundtrack (& Spacebase GIFT)
Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition
Heart Fragment - Book Two: Belief Fragments (Shannon & Lana)
Hellbound
HERO'S HOUR
Hexologic
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
Hokko Life
Honey, I Joined a Cult
Hyper Gunsport
I’m not a Monster
Internet Cafe Simulator
Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition
Iron Danger
Izmir: An Independence Simulator
Joggernauts
JYDGE
Killsquad
Kraken Academy!!
Labirinto 2
Lawn Mowing Simulator
Legend of Keepers
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
Let Them Come*
Little Orpheus
Lust for Darkness
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Maid of Sker
Mainlining
MEEPLE STATION
Meow Express
Merchant of the Skies
MirrorMoon EP
Monaco
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
Moon Hunters
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
NecroWorm
NeuroVoider
Neverinth
Neverout
Non-Stop Raiders
Of Orcs And Men
Orbital Racer
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Outward - The Soroboreans DLC
Override
Overture
Ozymandias
Partial Control
Pathfinders: Memories
Pathway
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
PGA TOUR 2K21 (may keep)
Pilgrims
Pill Baby
Pixplode
Planet TD
PlataGO!
PowerBeatsVR
Project Chemistry
Project Nimbus: Complete Edition
Propagation VR - Co-op
Pumped BMX +
Quadrata
Radio Commander
Railroad Corporation
Railroad Tycoon 3
Rebel Galaxy
Rebound Dodgeball Evolved
Re-Legion
Remnants of Naezith
Resident Evil Revelations (may keep)
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony
RIOT - Civil Unrest
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
ROGUE LORDS
RPG Maker VX
Rym 9000
Sakura Alien
Sakura Knight
Sakura Knight 2
Sakura Knight 3
Sakura MMO
Sakura MMO 2
Sakura MMO 3
Sakura MMO Extra
Sakura Succubus
Sakura Succubus 2
Sakura Succubus 3
Sakura Succubus 4
Sakura Succubus 5
Sakura Succubus 6
Sakura Swim Club
SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
Shady Part of Me
Shing!
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Sid Meier's Railroads!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Slinger VR
Smile For Me
Sorcerer King: Rivals
Soul Searching
Soulblight
Space Crew: Legendary Edition
Spellcaster University
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
Stacking
Starpoint Gemini Warlords
Strider*
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Sunlight
Super Chicken Catchers
Super Magbot
Surviving the Aftermath (may keep)
Sword Legacy Omen
SYMMETRY
TaniNani
Telefrag VR
The Amazing American Circus
The Beast Inside
The Deed II
The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR
The Invisible Hand
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (may keep)
The Serpent Rogue
The USB Stick Found in the Grass
Ticket to Ride
Tools Up!
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Traffic Jams
Train Station Renovation
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Underland: The Climb
UnMetal*
Vanishing Realms
War for the Overworld
WARSAW
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
White Noise 2
Worms Rumble
WRC 7
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
XCOM 2
X-COM: Complete Pack (including X-COM: UFO Defense + X-COM: Apocalypse + X-COM: Enforcer + X-COM: Interceptor + X-COM: Terror from the Deep)
XEL
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack (including X-Morph: Defense + X-Morph: Defense - European Assault + X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest + X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion)
V: Rings of Saturn
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Mad Max
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
Batman™: Arkham Knight Premium Edition
Batman™: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham City GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham Origins
Katamari Damacy REROLL (May keep)
PAC-MAN MUSEUM+
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (May keep, only good offers)
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Metal: Hellsinger (May keep, only good offers)
Non-STEAM
DOOM 64 (Bethesda.net)
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection (ORIGIN key)
Liberated (GOG key)
STAR WARS: Squadrons (Origin)
Wanderlust Travel Stories (GOG key)
Software
Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7
GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months
Music Maker EDM Edition
Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook and Starfinder Core Rulebook
Polygon Farm, Polygon City, and Polygon Prototype
GameDev.tv
Complete Unity 3D Developer
Zenva Academy
Intro to Game Development with Unity
Region is NA
My REPs: 202 successful trades, 0 dispute.
submitted by Jerry_217-2 to GameTrade [link] [comments]
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Autonauts vs Piratebots
Deceive Inc.
Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus?
Hot Brass
Arcade Paradise
Tin Can
Agent in Depth
Alchemist's Castle
Among Us
Armello
Army Men RTS
Assault Suit Leynos
Backbone
Battlecruisers
Blade Assault
Blood And Zombies
Brawlout
Builder Simulator
Cats in Time
Chicka Wars Chicken Meat
CivCity: Rome
Click and Slay
Concept Destruction
Corridor Z
Cosmonautica
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Dagon - The Eldritch Box DLC
Dead Age
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Death Squared
Demon Turf
Detached: Non-VR Edition
Double Cross
Doughlings: Arcade
Doughlings: Invasion
Draw Slasher
Drawful 2
Due Process
El Hijo
Eldest Souls
Emily is Away <3
Encased
Epic Chef
ETERNAL THREADS
Farming Simulator 17
Firegirl: Hack 'n Splash Rescue
First Class Trouble
Five Dates
Fling to the Finish
Forged Battalion
Fortissimo FA INTL Ver
Founders' Fortune
Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
GameGuru Classic
Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
Gloria Victis
Go Home Dinosaurs!
Going Under
Golf Gang*
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload*
Guns & Fishes
Guts and Glory
Hack 'n' Slash + Soundtrack (& Spacebase GIFT)
Halcyon 6: Lightspeed Edition
Heart Fragment - Book Two: Belief Fragments (Shannon & Lana)
Hellbound
HERO'S HOUR
Hexologic
Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
Hokko Life
Honey, I Joined a Cult
Hyper Gunsport
I’m not a Monster
Internet Cafe Simulator
Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition
Iron Danger
Izmir: An Independence Simulator
Joggernauts
JYDGE
Killsquad
Kraken Academy!!
Labirinto 2
Lawn Mowing Simulator
Legend of Keepers
LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
Let Them Come*
Little Orpheus
Lust for Darkness
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Maid of Sker
Mainlining
MEEPLE STATION
Meow Express
Merchant of the Skies
MirrorMoon EP
Monaco
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp
Moon Hunters
Morbid: The Seven Acolytes
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
NecroWorm
NeuroVoider
Neverinth
Neverout
Non-Stop Raiders
Of Orcs And Men
Orbital Racer
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
Outward - The Soroboreans DLC
Override
Overture
Ozymandias
Partial Control
Pathfinders: Memories
Pathway
Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
PGA TOUR 2K21 (may keep)
Pilgrims
Pill Baby
Pixplode
Planet TD
PlataGO!
PowerBeatsVR
Project Chemistry
Project Nimbus: Complete Edition
Propagation VR - Co-op
Pumped BMX +
Quadrata
Radio Commander
Railroad Corporation
Railroad Tycoon 3
Rebel Galaxy
Rebound Dodgeball Evolved
Re-Legion
Remnants of Naezith
Resident Evil Revelations (may keep)
Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony
RIOT - Civil Unrest
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos
ROGUE LORDS
RPG Maker VX
Rym 9000
Sakura Alien
Sakura Knight
Sakura Knight 2
Sakura Knight 3
Sakura MMO
Sakura MMO 2
Sakura MMO 3
Sakura MMO Extra
Sakura Succubus
Sakura Succubus 2
Sakura Succubus 3
Sakura Succubus 4
Sakura Succubus 5
Sakura Succubus 6
Sakura Swim Club
SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
Shady Part of Me
Shing!
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
Sid Meier's Railroads!
Siege Survival: Gloria Victis
Slinger VR
Smile For Me
Sorcerer King: Rivals
Soul Searching
Soulblight
Space Crew: Legendary Edition
Spellcaster University
Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
Stacking
Starpoint Gemini Warlords
Strider*
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Sunlight
Super Chicken Catchers
Super Magbot
Surviving the Aftermath (may keep)
Sword Legacy Omen
SYMMETRY
TaniNani
Telefrag VR
The Amazing American Circus
The Beast Inside
The Deed II
The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR
The Invisible Hand
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (may keep)
The Serpent Rogue
The USB Stick Found in the Grass
Ticket to Ride
Tools Up!
Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt
Traffic Jams
Train Station Renovation
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Underland: The Climb
UnMetal*
Vanishing Realms
War for the Overworld
WARSAW
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
White Noise 2
Worms Rumble
WRC 7
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
XCOM 2
X-COM: Complete Pack (including X-COM: UFO Defense + X-COM: Apocalypse + X-COM: Enforcer + X-COM: Interceptor + X-COM: Terror from the Deep)
XEL
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack (including X-Morph: Defense + X-Morph: Defense - European Assault + X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest + X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion)
V: Rings of Saturn
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Mad Max
MORTAL KOMBAT XL
Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
Batman™: Arkham Knight Premium Edition
Batman™: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham City GOTY Edition
Batman™: Arkham Origins
Katamari Damacy REROLL (May keep)
PAC-MAN MUSEUM+
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes (May keep, only good offers)
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Spirit Of The Island
Lords and Villeins
A Juggler's Tale
Mr. Prepper
Beacon Pines
There Is No Light
Children of Silentown
Oaken
Snowtopia
Metal: Hellsinger (May keep, only good offers)
Non-STEAM
DOOM 64 (Bethesda.net)
Command & Conquer Remastered Collection (ORIGIN key)
Liberated (GOG key)
STAR WARS: Squadrons (Origin)
Wanderlust Travel Stories (GOG key)
Software
Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7
GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months
Music Maker EDM Edition
Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook and Starfinder Core Rulebook
Polygon Farm, Polygon City, and Polygon Prototype
GameDev.tv
Complete Unity 3D Developer
Zenva Academy
Intro to Game Development with Unity
Region is NA
My REPs: 202 successful trades, 0 dispute.
2024.05.19 02:47 InverseFlash UMA Spring de-poetried
Ha! Of course! Jackpot!UMA Spring is fourth of the seasons the Union faced, who spread his domain in Tokyo.
Luck shines upon me, indeed! Oh yes!
For nothing beats Spring!!
Core
Phase 2
Physicals
- When Billy uses Unbalance on Tokyo Tower, turning it into a rubber band that would have flung Andy and Fuuko halfway across Japan, Spring remained at the top of the tower without losing his grip
- Defeated Isshin Tesshu I in a fight while brainwashed
- Placed the boulder marking Isshin Tesshu's grave
Elemental Control
- Can turn people into cherry trees if they touch the petals from other trees
- Alternatively, people also turn into cherry trees if they spend thirty minutes inside Spring's range
- Once Fuuko reaches his vantage point, he takes all the energy from the cherry trees below and collects it into one giant megaflora
- After his death, all that became cherry trees are reverted to what they were before
Phase 2: Kabuki Form
Physicals
- Punches a crater in the ground for the
beybladeNegate Tops arena - Stomps hard enough that Isshin and Fuuko fly up from the force
- Would have killed Fuuko with a direct hit if not for an Unbreakable pauldron
- Struck by lightning
- A tree topples onto him, a rock falls on his head, and his box of games blows into his face
- Rips open his chest to expose his core
Elemental Control
- A storm is summoned, with lightning bolts that instantly superheat and kill trees
- Directs wind at Fuuko to slam her into a trunk
- A "natural" lightning strike shocks Isshin and Andy
Other
- Any attacks attempting to interfere with his game are negated and the issuer of said attack is transformed into cherry wood
- Fights against the brainwashing God does on him
Phase 3
Physicals
- Jumps from the top of Tokyo Tower to Tokyo below, crushing the buildings he lands on with a new immense size
- Phase 3 is impervious to all attacks, though if you aren't explicitly trying to attack then it is possible for the attacks to land
- Rip's Blade Runner blade does no damage despite bypassing his imperviousness
- Shen's Nyoi-Kinko staff also fails to do anything
- Unbreakable Tachyoshot drives Rip's blade into Spring's chestplate, which was unable to pierce it by itself
- Cut down the middle when Andy's sword is made unchanging by Billy
Elemental Control
- Where he stomps, nature blooms, replacing what was there before
- Sends a wave of cherry petals to tree-ify a borough of Tokyo untouched so far
- Entering Phase 3 greatly expanded his area of influence
- Controls cherry tree limbs
- Tags Andy with cherry petal projectiles
- Snatches the Nyoi-Kinko and Nico's Psycho Pods with cherry limbs
- Shields himself with castle-sized cherry trees
Artefacts
General- Has a list of everyone who he's destroyed in artefact games
- Possesses a huge box filled with artefacts he's found in Japan
The Second Game (No Artefact Name)
Kofusai
Warmth and kindness have…
Helped to usher in a change…
In this set of rules…
That I shall cherish with pride.
For I am the spring itself.
2024.05.19 02:42 ThisIsKeiKei [Excerpt: Tally of Slaughter] The Executioners Chapter fights the first Vashtorr Marines
Context:The Ushmengar are a Chaos warband dedicated to Vashtorr. They were initially part of the Astral Claws, but when Huron was defeated during the Badab War, they decided to forge their own path instead of following him to the Maelstrom. These Space Marines in particular were some of the first Astral Claws that the Executioners slaughtered during the Badab War, and the Warband was formed by the survivors of their rampage.
In this short story, the Executioners, having just finished a Penitent Crusade, were hunting for the Ushmengar. They had managed to pinpoint them to a Mechanicum forgeworld, and the Death Speaker of the chapter, an Astartes named Razel, a Librarian named Igikura, and a group of Bladeguard descended onto the planet. When they found the Chaos lord of the Ushmengar, named Kagal, this is what happened
submitted by ThisIsKeiKei to u/ThisIsKeiKei [link] [comments]
In this short story, the Executioners, having just finished a Penitent Crusade, were hunting for the Ushmengar. They had managed to pinpoint them to a Mechanicum forgeworld, and the Death Speaker of the chapter, an Astartes named Razel, a Librarian named Igikura, and a group of Bladeguard descended onto the planet. When they found the Chaos lord of the Ushmengar, named Kagal, this is what happened
The Chaos Space Marine cocked its head to one side, eyes boring into Razel’s. When the Death Speaker was within reach, it nodded and spread its arms wide. The Executioner swung his crozius. The fractal form of the Heretic Astartes shivered as Sharur connected with it. There was the roar of a vast furnace underscored by the shriek of overtaxed bellows, the clanking of gears and the hammering of pistons, and the Ushmengar vanished like smoke blown in the wind, leaving only a chorus of trailing screams.After this, Razel and his men continued to go deeper into the Manufactorium and ended up fighting a bunch of other Ushmengar
The Death Speaker swung his crozius, but the Chaos Space Marine dodged the attack. The strike went wide, cracking the side of the furnace. Razel punched out with his pistol and sent his opponent’s bolter flying off. Undeterred, the Ushmengar ripped off a piston hammer from a slain ogryn and arrested Razel’s downward swing. Muscles strained, his sinew coils contracted and he drove the Heretic Astartes onto one knee. The Ushmengar’s composure broke and he roared at the Death Speaker. With a burst of vigour he regained his footing and shook Razel off. Burst fire from the Executioner’s pistol stitched an arc across his helmet, which cracked, exposing his metallic face beneath. The delineation between the organic and inorganic had become blurred to the extent that they had become one and the same. Oil bled from ruined armour and unclean flesh-metal.
A storm had broken out at the end of the hall. Lightning flashed, lancing out from furnace to furnace as a rain of brimstone fell. An unholy radiance pulsed in the penumbral gloom, accompanied by the skirling of bronze horns lining the altar. The light rose out of the chancel of the command fane and drifted towards the Death Speaker and the Epistolary, who had advanced ahead to the binary-etched plaza. Within the pulsing storm was Kalag.
Molten metal was siphoned off the blast furnaces, forming fiery wheels into an armillary sphere spinning around the floating Ushmengar. The skitarii shrieked in binharic as they were lifted from the raised walkways, torn towards the eye of the churning storm. They were disassembled, their flesh withering into ash whilst their bionics melded into the spinning rings upon which bleeding eyes had formed. As Kalag moved towards Razel and Igikura, a forge-vault vast beyond imagining spread out behind him, the hellish vision overlapping the reality of the manufactorum. There was the roar of colossal furnaces, the heave and gasp of monumental bellows, and the clang of countless hammers, thudding pistons and clanking gears, underpinned by the screaming of tortured souls fuelling the forges.
Whereas Kalag’s form had been ephemeral before, a charcoal sketch jumping in and out of focus, now it was wholly corporeal. His armour was burned black, running with unclean oils and unguents. Mechadendrites writhed from between the plates like fungal growths, straining for some dire unity with the emergent daemonic mechanism. Around him were the rings of the armillary sphere, which were both armour and a mechanism to unravel reality, spinning faster until they were a blur as the warpsmith approached them
Up ahead, Igikura stood alone, defiant. The crystalline matrix of his axe blazed, focusing his power before it lanced upwards into Kalag. For a moment, the spinning rings slowed and fire raged down upon the Epistolary, enveloping the Executioner. The apotropaic sigils upon his armour shone migraine-bright as they earthed the worst effects of the warpsmith’s attack. The Librarian’s mind was in the throes of a fever dream, the backwash of the Ushmengar’s barrage bruising his soul.
Sensing his brother’s agony, Razel rose and swung, striking again. A resonant peal shivered through the armillary sphere to no discernible effect.
Kalag, whose attention had been thoroughly upon Igikura, glanced at him, his quasar-like gaze boring into Razel’s own. A high-pitched screech preceded the obliteration of Razel’s helm display. His armour felt heavier. The fibre-bundle muscles tensed and servos halted, keeping him upright. Straining, he raised his hands and took off his helmet. When he beheld the ashes of penitence streaking down Razel’s defiant face, the warpsmith sneered. ‘Lapdog of the False Emperor.’ His voice thundered like the hammer of a god striking an anvil
Razel bared his teeth in response, glistening with blood. ‘You were supposed to die at Badab.’ ‘Oh but you see, I did die. We were marooned in the immaterium after our warp drives failed. Bereft, betrayed by a rotting Imperium and an unkind god bedecked in fool’s gold. Where was Lufgt Huron then? His promises and his lies? We no longer need him, nor your carrion god. We have a new divinity to serve!’ Kalag turned towards the growing portal behind him, his arms encompassing the hellish scene and the towering daemonic figure with scythe-like wings who was looking down at the Executioners with an amused interest. ‘Behold the Arkifane! Our salvation! We will deliver this forge-temple of Mars to him!’
"Brother…" Igikura’s voice was straining with titanic effort. "I will not make it to the end." The Death Speaker growled. The Librarian forestalled him. "Spare me your protestations. I will distract him and hold the rings, but I am not strong enough to make the final blow. That falls to you. May your own Penitent Crusade be over after this."
Igikura’s mind soared in the warp like the rising sun. He burned with immaterial energies. Coruscating lightning cascaded down his limbs and flared off him in streamer arcs, with a branching spark earthing itself in the Death Speaker’s crozius. One last parting gift from brother to brother.
Razel wasted no time. With the warpsmith’s attention upon the Epistolary, his armour was free. He trudged forward, pausing only to pick up Igikura’s axe whilst hefting his crozius. Breaking into a run, he leapt upon one of the stilled rings. Razel hurled the force axe. It spun, blazing, still saturated with Igikura’s psychic might and sacrifice. The blade wedged fast into Kalag’s breastplate, tendrils of darkness slithering out of the wound. A few moments later, Razel was upon him with Sharur, imbued with a shred of the Epistolary’s empyric strength. The warpsmith raged, blocking the Death Speaker’s strike with a cog-toothed, daemonic axe. Mechadendrites speared through Razel’s armour, biting deep into his flesh. Gurgling blood, the Executioner drew the mace back and slammed it forwards, again and again, shattering his foe’s armour in a frenzy until his corrupt essence could no longer be contained. The unravelling of Kalag was like that of a collapsing star. The death throes screamed out from his unwinding body, black flame rising between the plates, his flesh unmade into ash.
2024.05.19 02:41 InverseFlash Respect UMA Spring! (Undead Unluck)
Ha! Of course! Jackpot!UMA Spring is fourth, of the seasons Union beat. The strongest of all, he made Kyoto his playground; he loves games dearly. He only speaks in haiku, hence I shall follow.
Luck shines upon me, indeed! Oh yes!
For nothing beats Spring!!
Perusing Legend
Others Interacted With- Andy the Undead
- Fuuko Izumo, Unluck
- God, one above all
- Rip Tristan, one Unrepair
- Shen Xian, once Untruth
- Top Bull Sparx, Unstoppable
- Most feats are ordered...with chronological tact. Only artefacts...find themselves in games' pattern.
- Mouse above a link...to find the chapter number.
- Scans draw from past Loop; Spring has yet to reappear.
- Character page.
- If poetry really isn't your thing, here's a version of this thread that doesn't have any of that.
Spring's Core (No Phase 1)
- Passive tree germination, within nearby range
- Tugs a treasure chest, many times larger than him, filled with game trinkets
Second Phase of Spring
Physical Actions Performed
- Billy's Unbalance, a spring of a different sort, bends Tokyo Tower. Spring, at the top, never fell...his grip has true strength
- (Controlled by evil forces) Fell in battle against Spring, Isshin Tesshu did
- Marked Isshin's grave with carved stone, hefted overhead
Springtime Essence Controlling
- Upon first contact, petals will transform people...all are dendrified
- With but half an hour, Spring's presence will dendrify; no one can defend
- When a challenger shows, Spring collects the trees, coalescing energy
- Upon Spring's felling, all that transformed into trees, returns to its state
Phase 2's Kabuki
Physical Actions Performed
- Punches a crater, which dwarfs the nearby Fuuko, to play Negate Tops
- Fuuko and Isshin fly up--caused from Spring's great stomp
- An Unbreakable pauldron, shields Fuuko from death...it takes but a single punch!
- Lightning struck him thrice
- Victim to felled tree and rock...and his box of games
- His chest torn open can't hide...his core's emotions
Springtime Essence Controlling
Miscellaneous
- You'll regret interference, until dendrified...punishment for saboteurs; no damage allowed
- Blasphemes against divine ideas, placed within his mind
Phase 3
(Phase 3 drops the haiku talking scheme due to God's forced brainwashing)Physicals
- Jumps from the top of Tokyo Tower to Tokyo below, crushing the buildings he lands on with a new immense size
- Phase 3 is impervious to all attacks, though if you aren't explicitly trying to attack then it is possible for the attacks to land
- Rip's Blade Runner blade does no damage despite bypassing his imperviousness
- Shen's Nyoi-Kinko staff also fails to do anything
- Unbreakable Tachyoshot drives Rip's blade into Spring's chestplate, which was unable to pierce it by itself
- Cut down the middle when Andy's sword is made unchanging by Billy
Elemental Control
- Where he stomps, nature blooms, replacing what was there before
- Sends a wave of cherry petals to dendrify a borough of Tokyo untouched so far
- Entering Phase 3 greatly expanded his area of influence
- Controls cherry tree limbs
- Tags Andy with cherry petal projectiles
- Snatches the Nyoi-Kinko and Nico's Psycho Pods with cherry limbs
- Shields himself with castle-sized cherry trees
Artefacts
General- Has a list of everyone who he's destroyed in artefact games
- Possesses a huge box filled with artefacts he's found in Japan
The Second Game (No Artefact Name)
Kofusai
Warmth and kindness have…
Helped to usher in a change…
In this set of rules…
That I shall cherish with pride.
For I am the spring itself.
2024.05.19 02:15 TexasTrooper My adventures reading in a post-Abercrombie world
Do your tastes in fiction run a bit darker than most? Do you find yourself rooting for the bad guys in movies? Do you enjoy a good tragedy over a happy ending? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, this post is for you.
If you're anything like me, you've probably found yourself chasing the Abercrombie dragon after completing The First Law, standalones, and The Age of Madness trilogy, only to find that nothing else quite scratches that grimdark itch. Whether it's Joe's unforgettable characters, sharp dialogues, or epic battles, there's just something missing from other offerings in the genre.
So, as a thanks to all the authors of various recommendation threads from which I've picked up some wonderful books, I've put together this list to share where my wanderings have taken me and to hopefully point others like me in the right direction.
In no particular order:
EDIT:
Thread Recommendations:
submitted by TexasTrooper to TheFirstLaw [link] [comments]
If you're anything like me, you've probably found yourself chasing the Abercrombie dragon after completing The First Law, standalones, and The Age of Madness trilogy, only to find that nothing else quite scratches that grimdark itch. Whether it's Joe's unforgettable characters, sharp dialogues, or epic battles, there's just something missing from other offerings in the genre.
So, as a thanks to all the authors of various recommendation threads from which I've picked up some wonderful books, I've put together this list to share where my wanderings have taken me and to hopefully point others like me in the right direction.
In no particular order:
- Assassin's Apprentice - Robin Hobb (fb: Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest)
- Dune - Frank Herbert (fb: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune...)
- The Road - Cormac McCarthy
- Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
- The Shadow of the Torturer - Gene Wolf (fb: The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, The Citadel of the Autarch)
- The Black Company - Glen Cook (fb: Shadows Linger, The White Rose, Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, The Silver Spike, Bleak Seasons, She Is the Darkness, Water Sleeps, Soldiers Live...)
- Heroes Die - Matthew Stover (fb: Blade of Tyshalle)
- Theft of Swords - Michael J. Sullivan (fb: Rise of Empire, Heir of Novron)
- The Darkness That Comes Before - R. Scott Bakker (fb: The Warrior Prophet, The Thousandfold Thought, The Judging Eye, The White-Luck Warrior, The Great Ordeal, The Unholy Consult)
- Prince of Thorns - Mark Lawrence (fb: King of Thorns, Emperor of Thorns)
- Gardens of the Moon - Steven Erikson (fb: Deadhouse Gates, Memories of Ice, House of Chains, Midnight Tides, The Bonehunters, Reaper's Gale, Toll the Hounds, Dust of Dreams, The Crippled God)
- Blood Song - Anthony Ryan (fb: Tower Lord, Queen of Fire)
- Metro 2033 - Dmitry Glukhovsky (fb: Metro 2034, Metro 2035)
- Red Rising - Pierce Brown (fb: Golden Son, Morning Star, Iron Gold, Dark Age, Lightbringer...)
- The Winter King - Bernard Cornwell (fb: Enemy of God, Excalibur)
- The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson (fb: The Monster Baru Cormorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant...)
- Horus Rising (Warhammer 40k) - Dan Abnett (fb: False Gods, Galaxy in Flames)
- Xenos (Warhammer 40k) - Dan Abnett (fb: Malleus, Hereticus, Ravenor...)
- Red Sister - Mark Lawrence (fb: Grey Sister, Holy Sister)
- The Ember Blade - Chris Wooding (fb: The Shadow Casket)
- Priest of Bones - Peter McLean (fb: Priest of Lies, Priest of Gallows, Priest of Crowns)
- The Conspiracy Against the Human Race (this was the basis for True Detective - Thomas Ligotti (fb: Songs of a Dead Dreamer)
- Kings of Paradise - Richard Nell (fb: Kings of Ash, Kings of Heavan)
- Empire of Silence - Christopher Ruocchio (fb: Howling Dark, Demon in White, Kingdoms of Death, Ashes of Man, Disquiet Gods)
- We Are the Dead - Mike Shackle (fb: A Fool's Hope, Until the Last)
- The Black Prism - Brent Weeks (fb: The Blinding Knife, The Broken Eye, The Blood Mirror, The Burning White)
- Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City - K.J. Parker (fb: How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, Practical Guide to Conquering the World)
- Blackwing - Ed McDonald (fb: Ravencry, Crowfall)
- A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin (fb: A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons.......pls George)
- The Way of Shadows - Brent Weeks (fb: Shadow's Edge, Beyond the Shadows)
- Chasing Graves - Ben Galley (fb: Grim Solace, Breaking Chaos)
- Soul Hunter (Warhammer 40k) - Aaron Dembski-Bowden (fb: Blood Reaver, Void Stalker)
- Berserk (Manga) - Kentaro Miura
- Beyond Redemption - Michael R. Fletcher (fb: The Mirror's Truth, Swarm and Steel)
- The Warded Man - Peter V. Brett (fb: The Desert Spear, The Daylight War, The Skull Throne, The Core)
- The Barrow - Mark Smylie (fb: Black Heart)
- Winterbirth - Brian Ruckley (fb: Bloodheir, Fall of Thanes)
- Scourge of the Betrayer - Jeff Salyards (fb: Veil of the Deserters, Chains of the Heretic)
- The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch (fb: Red Seas Under Red Skies, The Republic of Thieves...The Thorn of Emberlain)
- The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (fb: The Wise Man's Fear...)
EDIT:
Thread Recommendations:
- Cahokia Jazz - Francis Stupford
- Tomorrow's Children - Daniel Polansky
- Between Two Fires - Christopher Buehlman
- Pale (web serial) - Wildbow
- The Band - Nicholas Eames (Kings of the Wyld, Bloody Rose)
- Firefall - Peter Watts (Blindsight, Echopraxia)
- The Faithful and the Fallen - John Gwynne (Malice, Valor, Ruin, Wrath)
- The Bloodsworn Trilogy - John Gwynne (The Shadow of the Gods, The Hunger of the Gods, The Fury of the Gods)
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever - Stephen R. Donaldson (Lord Foul's Bane, The Illeath War, The Power that Preserves, The Wounded Land, The One Tree, White Gold Wielder, The Runes of the Earth, Fatal Revenant, Against All Things Ending, The Last Dark)
- The Gap Cycle - Stephen R. Donaldson (The Real Story: The Gap Into Conflict, Forbidden Knowledge: The Gap Into Vision, A Dark and Hungry God Arises: The Gap into Power, Chaos and Order, This Day All Gods Die)
- The Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny (Nine Princes in Amber, The Guns of Avalon, Sign of the Unicorn, The Hand of Oberon, The Courts of Chaos, Trumps of Doom, Blood of Amber, Sign of Chaos, Knights of Shadows, Prince of Chaos)
- The Broken Earth Trilogy - N.K. Jemisin (The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky)
- Dungeon Crawler Carl (Lit RPG) - Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl, Carl's Doomsday Scenario, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, The Gate of the Feral Gods, The Butcher's Masquerade, The Eye of the Bedlam Bridge)
- Gnomon - Nick Harkaway
- The Gone-Away World - Nick Harkaway
- Lonesome Dove, Streets of Laredo, Dead Man's Walk (Western/Abercrombie influence) - Larry McMurtry
2024.05.19 01:18 Alas-I-Cannot-Swim Design Notes Series: Weapon Arts[?]
Welcome to the first post in the prophesied Design Notes Series, which will see periodic releases during the (probably long) wait until 3.0, and will preview and discuss upcoming content.
As was mentioned in the Anniversary post, I am working on 3.0 whenever I find the time and motivation; treating it like homework did not do wonders for my creativity, back when I started. So this Series is meant to serve as an appetizer and periodic reminder that progress is still being made.
The Design Notes Series will also have prompts in the comments; questions from me about the things discussed in the post.
Let's get into it!
So I may rename it to "Weapon Art." No less clichéd, really, but the point isn't to make the word unique, just unambiguous, evocative, and a maybe little more iconic.
And I would just do it, if it weren't for the fact that find-and-replace is really glitchy in Inkscape (of course it is), so I would have to manually replace every instance of the phrase.
Since I haven't decided yet, I'm going to use the phrase Weapon Art for the rest of this post, to try it on and see how it fits. Let me know what you think of the term, and whether you think it would be an improvement worth taking the time to implement.
Personally, if nothing else, I think it enhances clarity.
The Function of the Art should be to...
(Besides these guidelines, every option in SoulWeapon must synergize with other potential choices; that's the Golden Rule for Everything, since the very start).
There are a few exceptions, like Cane Sword or Wand, where the Art hones in on some thematic principle of the weapon or does something unique entirely. I would define these as Arts that enable a trope, which is sort of a hidden 4th Function.
But there are other exceptions I am less happy with. There are some Weapon Arts that have always struck me as incorrect, or just insufficient, but they stayed because I could never think of anything better.
But I've reevaluated the principles behind Weapon Arts. As a result, a number of Weapon Classes—some of which have been unchanged since 1.0—are seeing new Weapon Arts in 3.0.
Let's talk about a few of them.
Cane Sword is a rare and weird weapon that is already almost exclusively used as a way to conceal a weapon or exude style and poise. So the Art reflects that stealth-based nature. But knives are used in a variety of ways besides stealth: open melee combat, ranged attacks, etc. So its Art should at least be a little broader.
The new Art serves Function 2: Compensating for Weakness. One of the weaknesses of the knife is its short range in melee; it's difficult to get past the defenses of most standard-sized weapons to where knives can thrive. The new Weapon Art is called Close-Quarters Combat.
If you really liked Whisper Walk, or had some builds that depended on it, don't worry: it will still be possible to access the effects of Whisper Walk in 3.0.
So, since Sword grants improved skill and and a buff to Runic Potency, Mace shall grant improved might and a buff to Runic Potency.
This feels really really right to me, whereas the old Art (Brute) felt pretty lackluster. Swords are about precision, so they buff your skill, and Maces are about crushing power, so they should buff your might. Both weapons buff Runic Potency, and so you have twin "default" melee weapons that act almost as spokespersons for their broader weapon types. As a bonus, the new Art sort of encompasses what Brute did, so it's a strict buff at the end of the day.
You might think the other "default" weapons to be Knives (the default throwing) and Bow (the default shooting). These haven't gotten parallel Runic Potency -type abilities, but their Weapon Arts have been buffed or reworked in other ways.
It has been replaced with a new Art that better suits the beat-and-block nature of Tonfas: Missile Deflection. This lets you intercept projectiles and helps with blocking melee attacks, so you can close the distance on ranged foes and then out-defend them. It's meant to be strong enough to effectively invalidate mundane archers and make the lives of Soulbound archers rather difficult; tonfas are a below-average weapon, so they deserve an above-average Art to compensate.
The new Art fills a niche we for some reason didn't have before: a true spinning chain weapon. It is called Spin Control, and it is to Corded weapons as Hover Spin (Giant Shuriken) is to Throwing weapons. It has a little extra bonus of allowing you to remotely control the orientation of the blade (separately from the chain), which can have some niche utility applications beyond just ensuring the kama hits your target point-first when you spin/fling it.
As with the others, the effects of Kusarigama's old Art will be accessible one way or another in 3.0; nothing is getting truly left behind.
Future Design Notes posts likely won't be as long as this one, as most of them will focus on one single item instead of an entire design philosophy.
And
See you in the next! (And don't forget to let me know what you think of the new name).
submitted by Alas-I-Cannot-Swim to SoulWeapon [link] [comments]
As was mentioned in the Anniversary post, I am working on 3.0 whenever I find the time and motivation; treating it like homework did not do wonders for my creativity, back when I started. So this Series is meant to serve as an appetizer and periodic reminder that progress is still being made.
The Design Notes Series will also have prompts in the comments; questions from me about the things discussed in the post.
Let's get into it!
Weapon Art?
I am considering renaming the phrase "Special Ability". As casual language, pretty much everything in SW is an "ability" that is "special," so the term always felt ambiguous to me. But more importantly, it just doesn't shine. I'm a fan of vivid, evocative language in fiction, and nothing about the phrase "Special Ability" actually feels special to me. It's... generic.So I may rename it to "Weapon Art." No less clichéd, really, but the point isn't to make the word unique, just unambiguous, evocative, and a maybe little more iconic.
And I would just do it, if it weren't for the fact that find-and-replace is really glitchy in Inkscape (of course it is), so I would have to manually replace every instance of the phrase.
Since I haven't decided yet, I'm going to use the phrase Weapon Art for the rest of this post, to try it on and see how it fits. Let me know what you think of the term, and whether you think it would be an improvement worth taking the time to implement.
Personally, if nothing else, I think it enhances clarity.
The Importance and Function of a Weapon Art
Weapon Arts are the defining heart of a Weapon Class. If I can think of a unique Art for a weapon, it gets a Class. If I can't, it doesn't. But how do I decide what Art to give to a weapon? I have a process, and it goes a little something like this:The Function of the Art should be to...
- Make it Possible to use a weapon that is otherwise too impractical for combat. If this isn't applicable, it should instead...
- Compensate for a Weakness of the weapon. If this isn't applicable, it should instead...
- Amplify a Strength of the weapon.
(Besides these guidelines, every option in SoulWeapon must synergize with other potential choices; that's the Golden Rule for Everything, since the very start).
There are a few exceptions, like Cane Sword or Wand, where the Art hones in on some thematic principle of the weapon or does something unique entirely. I would define these as Arts that enable a trope, which is sort of a hidden 4th Function.
But there are other exceptions I am less happy with. There are some Weapon Arts that have always struck me as incorrect, or just insufficient, but they stayed because I could never think of anything better.
But I've reevaluated the principles behind Weapon Arts. As a result, a number of Weapon Classes—some of which have been unchanged since 1.0—are seeing new Weapon Arts in 3.0.
Let's talk about a few of them.
Knives
For such a common, bread-and-butter weapon, Whisper Walk is a really niche ability that is specific to certain settings/builds. In general, if a weapon is something that gets used a lot, I want its Art to be something that gets used a lot as well.Cane Sword is a rare and weird weapon that is already almost exclusively used as a way to conceal a weapon or exude style and poise. So the Art reflects that stealth-based nature. But knives are used in a variety of ways besides stealth: open melee combat, ranged attacks, etc. So its Art should at least be a little broader.
The new Art serves Function 2: Compensating for Weakness. One of the weaknesses of the knife is its short range in melee; it's difficult to get past the defenses of most standard-sized weapons to where knives can thrive. The new Weapon Art is called Close-Quarters Combat.
If you really liked Whisper Walk, or had some builds that depended on it, don't worry: it will still be possible to access the effects of Whisper Walk in 3.0.
Mace
If Sword is the "default" bladed weapon, Mace feels like the "default" blunt weapon. (Even if it can technically have spikes on it, its purpose is nonetheless to smash, where the Sword's is to cut). Seems like it has a similar versatility and number of design Variations as the Sword, too, doesn't it? It feels appropriate, then, that they would be reflections of each other, with Sword leading the charge on Page 1, and Mace leading the charge on Page 2.So, since Sword grants improved skill and and a buff to Runic Potency, Mace shall grant improved might and a buff to Runic Potency.
This feels really really right to me, whereas the old Art (Brute) felt pretty lackluster. Swords are about precision, so they buff your skill, and Maces are about crushing power, so they should buff your might. Both weapons buff Runic Potency, and so you have twin "default" melee weapons that act almost as spokespersons for their broader weapon types. As a bonus, the new Art sort of encompasses what Brute did, so it's a strict buff at the end of the day.
You might think the other "default" weapons to be Knives (the default throwing) and Bow (the default shooting). These haven't gotten parallel Runic Potency -type abilities, but their Weapon Arts have been buffed or reworked in other ways.
Tonfas
Non-Lethal was very cool, but it did not feel like a Weapon Art. Its effects have been moved to a section that makes much more sense for the type of ability it is (you can probably guess to where, if you grok the design philosophy of SoulWeapon).It has been replaced with a new Art that better suits the beat-and-block nature of Tonfas: Missile Deflection. This lets you intercept projectiles and helps with blocking melee attacks, so you can close the distance on ranged foes and then out-defend them. It's meant to be strong enough to effectively invalidate mundane archers and make the lives of Soulbound archers rather difficult; tonfas are a below-average weapon, so they deserve an above-average Art to compensate.
Kusarigama
Shadow Creep had the same problem as Whisper Walk: stealth is too niche a boon for Weapon Art; it restricts the potential of a Class by limiting its use-cases.The new Art fills a niche we for some reason didn't have before: a true spinning chain weapon. It is called Spin Control, and it is to Corded weapons as Hover Spin (Giant Shuriken) is to Throwing weapons. It has a little extra bonus of allowing you to remotely control the orientation of the blade (separately from the chain), which can have some niche utility applications beyond just ensuring the kama hits your target point-first when you spin/fling it.
As with the others, the effects of Kusarigama's old Art will be accessible one way or another in 3.0; nothing is getting truly left behind.
Conclusion
There are a number of other Classes that have had their Arts updated or completely remade, but you'll have to wait until release to see those.Future Design Notes posts likely won't be as long as this one, as most of them will focus on one single item instead of an entire design philosophy.
And
See you in the next! (And don't forget to let me know what you think of the new name).
2024.05.19 01:15 Gazooonga Diary of a Press-Ganged Saurian (#1/?)
Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
submitted by Gazooonga to HFY [link] [comments]
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
2024.05.18 22:21 mister_anti_meta Which of the games from Koei Tecmo would you recommend to anyone and why?
koei has a lot of games and in my opinion the warrios series are the best but there are some games where I just have to say I can't recommend them
The game I would not recommend is Blade Storm nightmare.To be honest, even the 8€ I paid for it back then was too much for the game but I'm not going to spend a whole hour writing here why
otherwise a game that I can only recommend to a very limited extent is Wo long why? it is an incredibly hard souls like and if you don't like that kind of thing or are not prepared I don't recommend it
But which games would you recommend? And why?
submitted by mister_anti_meta to dynastywarriors [link] [comments]
The game I would not recommend is Blade Storm nightmare.To be honest, even the 8€ I paid for it back then was too much for the game but I'm not going to spend a whole hour writing here why
otherwise a game that I can only recommend to a very limited extent is Wo long why? it is an incredibly hard souls like and if you don't like that kind of thing or are not prepared I don't recommend it
But which games would you recommend? And why?
2024.05.18 22:06 lolswainbot World Beast: Ti4mat
O
“World Beasts… are innately different to humans and other forms of 'life'. Those created in the Goddess’s image are bound only by fate and time, able to lead their own destiny if they will it so. For us, it’s different. We are born with a function in mind — a purpose. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes it’s not.
I still have no clue why Har-Meggidos was created.”
Sacrosanct was still unsure whether to engage or not — whether this was his battle to fight. Such indecisiveness faltered his flames, but noticing that Blodelshein was about to be crushed by one of the chunks, he quickly pushed her out of the way with a dive but got squashed into a bloody pulp himself.
“Sacrosanct!”
While the white-haired girl continued the battle, Sacrosanct soon lifted the mass, covered in his own blood. The hero spat out a dozen teeth from his mouth, though they soon healed back thanks to his flames. Now he was truly fired up.
However, he was not quite ready yet. It would take a few more steps to enter the ‘LIMITLESS’ state.
The dual-wielding warrior ran up Tiamat’s right arm while massively damaging it along the way. The light katana moved like a needle, while the longsword swung like a hammer; the two weapons synergized in a negative tempo, creating a dissonance of destruction.
Meanwhile, Sacrosanct stretched, ran in place, push-ups, sit-ups, jumping-jacks, all in impossibly quick succession. His heart rate began to increase rapidly, and so did the fire surrounding him.
The golden-eyed swordswoman was able to stab the World Beast Directly in its forehead, and while it caused excruciating agony and great damage, it was still not yet enough as roots sprouted from the wound and knocked her all the way to the ground, where a wooden spike much larger than she awaited.
Meanwhile, Sacrosanct began to sing to himself… No, he created rhythms. Songs? Humming? It was strange how he seemed to be listening to something in his head, but it was somehow working as his flames grew multiple times in size.
The girl quickly turned to face the ground using the weight of her swords, and in the split second before contact, her blades cut the spike directly in half, landing in its new crevice. However, the broken spike was then coiled in vines, and was shut in a matter of microseconds by the pressure surrounding it, and the hero was forced to struggle to keep herself uncrushed.
Meanwhile… Sacrosanct was finally ready — with just one more step. Now he took a good look at his enemy, the colossal demonic titan, much stronger than him; of course, he could beat her. He was Sacrosanct. With this newfound confidence, the hero began to concentrate the massive flame surrounding him toward himself, compressing the heat. Soon, a massive flash of light blinded the spectators, including Tiamat, and from the blinding light emerged Sacrosanct. The hero was now surrounded by an electrical storm running throughout his body, as well as blue flames contrasting with the previous red. He was not just any other hero, he was THE hero. He was Sacrosanct.
“Alright, bring it on!”
Tiamat could not fully gauge the hero’s strength and instead chose to finish the girl off by crushing her completely with her fist. However, as she turned her attention away, the World Beast was suddenly kicked in the face, snapping her massive head instantly. He was fast.
The World Beast quickly composed herself and healed her neck. Demonic spiders began to emerge from her wings; perfect for dealing with pests. However, Sacrosanct was no mere fly, and he began to easily set the spiders ablaze with his contagious flame, which then spread to the World Beast’s hair.
“Let’s go!”
While Tiamat was distracted by the flames, Sacrosanct lept from her shoulder directly toward the spike in which the katana-wielding hero was imprisoned. The sheer impact of cannonballing into the wooden structure was enough to blow it open, and the warrior was freed.
“You still haven’t told me your name yet!”
“...?”
The two looked up to see that Tiamat had already fully recovered. There must’ve been some way to kill her, for why else was she reincarnated?
“...Acata, could you tell us how you defeated her preciously?” asked Blodelshein in her native tongue.
The girl turned to find the source of the voice, but none lay in sight.
“I’m speaking to you telepathically. I’m afraid I won’t be much of a help — the demon lord has a powerful soul. Anyways, you said you met her before right? Then you must be the 15th hero, the one who defeated this demon lord. How did you do it?”
“...It was not I who killed Tiamat,” said Acata, “I suppose you could say that the entire world killed her.”
“...So you’re saying you lured her here without a plan to kill her?!”
“The plan is to slice and dice until it is done.”
“...”
It seemed that Blodelshein was surrounded by true warriors.
Now killing her was no longer an option, the best they could do would be to immobilize her until a method was found. However, things would not be so simple as Tiamat began to attack once again, interrupting the hero mid-thought.
A slit positioned directly at the centre of Tiamat’s breast opened like a vertical eye, and from the entrance began to stream a river of energy, the current of which soon turned into a torrent, then a storm. The energy began to form a sphere in the form of fire, like the heavenly ornament in the sky. The heroes could already feel its heat from the ground. As the World Beast began to power this attack, Sacrosanct came up with a brilliant plan — a Sacrosanct original.
“Alright, hero, I’ll neutralize this blast, then you attack her directly in that weird source — that must be her core or something!”
“...Fine.”
In the heat of the battle, language barriers can be fatal. As such, instead of listening to the words themselves, Acata decided to simply react to Sacrosanct’s action. Judging from his tone, it seemed that he had prepared a plan. Though she did not understand what his course of action would be, there was no other choice as the inevitability of decimation loomed over them.
Tiamat soon released the attack, and Sacrosanct released an attack of his own as well. All the flames surrounding him concentrated on his two fingers outstretched toward his target, leaving the rest of his body vulnerable and bare. As it was compressed into an atomic volume, it instantly flipped from a bright white to a blackhole void surrounded by dark lightning.
“Go!”
As the pseudo-sun continued to approach, the grass began to wilt and burn. However, neither Sacrosanct nor Acata moved an inch. Sacrosanct’s black hole was soon consumed by the flame, but Acata knew that his act was not yet over. The dark elf began to immediately calculate in his mind the time required for the sphere to reach the centre of Tiamat’s sun, and soon activated his spell:
“⌈Nuclear Starburst⌋!”
The black hole immediately increased a thousandfold in volume, completely enveloping Tiamat’s attack. It then folded in upon itself, erasing both attacks from existence. While Tiamat was shocked, Acata took no time to hesitate. She tested Sacrosanct’s theory by leaping a thousand paces into the air and plunging both her blades into Tiamat’s chest — the source of the strange energy.
As Blodelshein watched on from behind the rubble, she sincerely hoped that this would be the end. It did seem that the damage was massive, and the World Beast began to disintegrate as it wailed in pain. However, it soon clenched its teeth, and through its bloodied eyes, cast a desperate spell.
From the slit emerged a sphere — a flesh-pink, translucent sphere. Acata could see that her sword was stuck deep into it, and she could almost see inside, a small world. Like a minature garden, a microcosm…
A massive flash of light enveloped the area, and all three heroes were blinded. Through the brightness, however, Blodelshei,n could catch glimpses of stars passing by her, turning into lines, as if travelling through space.
Within the microcosm, three shooting stars — never seen before — entered the world.
submitted by lolswainbot to EonsRequiem [link] [comments]
“World Beasts… are innately different to humans and other forms of 'life'. Those created in the Goddess’s image are bound only by fate and time, able to lead their own destiny if they will it so. For us, it’s different. We are born with a function in mind — a purpose. Sometimes it’s clear, sometimes it’s not.
I still have no clue why Har-Meggidos was created.”
- Reginn Magina, World Beast, when asked about World Beasts
Sacrosanct was still unsure whether to engage or not — whether this was his battle to fight. Such indecisiveness faltered his flames, but noticing that Blodelshein was about to be crushed by one of the chunks, he quickly pushed her out of the way with a dive but got squashed into a bloody pulp himself.
“Sacrosanct!”
While the white-haired girl continued the battle, Sacrosanct soon lifted the mass, covered in his own blood. The hero spat out a dozen teeth from his mouth, though they soon healed back thanks to his flames. Now he was truly fired up.
However, he was not quite ready yet. It would take a few more steps to enter the ‘LIMITLESS’ state.
The dual-wielding warrior ran up Tiamat’s right arm while massively damaging it along the way. The light katana moved like a needle, while the longsword swung like a hammer; the two weapons synergized in a negative tempo, creating a dissonance of destruction.
Meanwhile, Sacrosanct stretched, ran in place, push-ups, sit-ups, jumping-jacks, all in impossibly quick succession. His heart rate began to increase rapidly, and so did the fire surrounding him.
The golden-eyed swordswoman was able to stab the World Beast Directly in its forehead, and while it caused excruciating agony and great damage, it was still not yet enough as roots sprouted from the wound and knocked her all the way to the ground, where a wooden spike much larger than she awaited.
Meanwhile, Sacrosanct began to sing to himself… No, he created rhythms. Songs? Humming? It was strange how he seemed to be listening to something in his head, but it was somehow working as his flames grew multiple times in size.
The girl quickly turned to face the ground using the weight of her swords, and in the split second before contact, her blades cut the spike directly in half, landing in its new crevice. However, the broken spike was then coiled in vines, and was shut in a matter of microseconds by the pressure surrounding it, and the hero was forced to struggle to keep herself uncrushed.
Meanwhile… Sacrosanct was finally ready — with just one more step. Now he took a good look at his enemy, the colossal demonic titan, much stronger than him; of course, he could beat her. He was Sacrosanct. With this newfound confidence, the hero began to concentrate the massive flame surrounding him toward himself, compressing the heat. Soon, a massive flash of light blinded the spectators, including Tiamat, and from the blinding light emerged Sacrosanct. The hero was now surrounded by an electrical storm running throughout his body, as well as blue flames contrasting with the previous red. He was not just any other hero, he was THE hero. He was Sacrosanct.
“Alright, bring it on!”
Tiamat could not fully gauge the hero’s strength and instead chose to finish the girl off by crushing her completely with her fist. However, as she turned her attention away, the World Beast was suddenly kicked in the face, snapping her massive head instantly. He was fast.
The World Beast quickly composed herself and healed her neck. Demonic spiders began to emerge from her wings; perfect for dealing with pests. However, Sacrosanct was no mere fly, and he began to easily set the spiders ablaze with his contagious flame, which then spread to the World Beast’s hair.
“Let’s go!”
While Tiamat was distracted by the flames, Sacrosanct lept from her shoulder directly toward the spike in which the katana-wielding hero was imprisoned. The sheer impact of cannonballing into the wooden structure was enough to blow it open, and the warrior was freed.
“You still haven’t told me your name yet!”
“...?”
The two looked up to see that Tiamat had already fully recovered. There must’ve been some way to kill her, for why else was she reincarnated?
“...Acata, could you tell us how you defeated her preciously?” asked Blodelshein in her native tongue.
The girl turned to find the source of the voice, but none lay in sight.
“I’m speaking to you telepathically. I’m afraid I won’t be much of a help — the demon lord has a powerful soul. Anyways, you said you met her before right? Then you must be the 15th hero, the one who defeated this demon lord. How did you do it?”
“...It was not I who killed Tiamat,” said Acata, “I suppose you could say that the entire world killed her.”
“...So you’re saying you lured her here without a plan to kill her?!”
“The plan is to slice and dice until it is done.”
“...”
It seemed that Blodelshein was surrounded by true warriors.
Now killing her was no longer an option, the best they could do would be to immobilize her until a method was found. However, things would not be so simple as Tiamat began to attack once again, interrupting the hero mid-thought.
A slit positioned directly at the centre of Tiamat’s breast opened like a vertical eye, and from the entrance began to stream a river of energy, the current of which soon turned into a torrent, then a storm. The energy began to form a sphere in the form of fire, like the heavenly ornament in the sky. The heroes could already feel its heat from the ground. As the World Beast began to power this attack, Sacrosanct came up with a brilliant plan — a Sacrosanct original.
“Alright, hero, I’ll neutralize this blast, then you attack her directly in that weird source — that must be her core or something!”
“...Fine.”
In the heat of the battle, language barriers can be fatal. As such, instead of listening to the words themselves, Acata decided to simply react to Sacrosanct’s action. Judging from his tone, it seemed that he had prepared a plan. Though she did not understand what his course of action would be, there was no other choice as the inevitability of decimation loomed over them.
Tiamat soon released the attack, and Sacrosanct released an attack of his own as well. All the flames surrounding him concentrated on his two fingers outstretched toward his target, leaving the rest of his body vulnerable and bare. As it was compressed into an atomic volume, it instantly flipped from a bright white to a blackhole void surrounded by dark lightning.
“Go!”
As the pseudo-sun continued to approach, the grass began to wilt and burn. However, neither Sacrosanct nor Acata moved an inch. Sacrosanct’s black hole was soon consumed by the flame, but Acata knew that his act was not yet over. The dark elf began to immediately calculate in his mind the time required for the sphere to reach the centre of Tiamat’s sun, and soon activated his spell:
“⌈Nuclear Starburst⌋!”
The black hole immediately increased a thousandfold in volume, completely enveloping Tiamat’s attack. It then folded in upon itself, erasing both attacks from existence. While Tiamat was shocked, Acata took no time to hesitate. She tested Sacrosanct’s theory by leaping a thousand paces into the air and plunging both her blades into Tiamat’s chest — the source of the strange energy.
As Blodelshein watched on from behind the rubble, she sincerely hoped that this would be the end. It did seem that the damage was massive, and the World Beast began to disintegrate as it wailed in pain. However, it soon clenched its teeth, and through its bloodied eyes, cast a desperate spell.
From the slit emerged a sphere — a flesh-pink, translucent sphere. Acata could see that her sword was stuck deep into it, and she could almost see inside, a small world. Like a minature garden, a microcosm…
A massive flash of light enveloped the area, and all three heroes were blinded. Through the brightness, however, Blodelshei,n could catch glimpses of stars passing by her, turning into lines, as if travelling through space.
Within the microcosm, three shooting stars — never seen before — entered the world.
2024.05.18 19:25 Omegarus211 Ragnarok: Second Coming - Chapter 6
 | Chapter 6 – {Awakening} submitted by Omegarus211 to ShuumatsuNoValkyrie [link] [comments] “What a sudden turn of events! Camulus has undergone a startling transformation, and has now suddenly gained the advantage! Can Henry come back from this? Or will Camulus crush him like the unstoppable force he has now seem to have become.” “What are we gonna’ do nowwwwww?” Goll whined, tears streaming down her face as she shelled up on the floor. Arthur looked at her sympathetically, as if he were a dad looking at his crying daughter. Kneeling down, he placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed gently, trying to rouse her from her worry. “There, there, the fight is not over yet.” Arthur assured her softly. Snapping up into a sitting position, she grabbed a hold of whatever cloth she could get her hands on and began to shake Arthur as hard as she could. With tear now of anger rather than sadness, she began to shout at him. “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, “The fights not over yet”? HE'S JUST TAKEN ON A STRONGER FORM, AND HENRY CAN BARELY KEEP UP WITH HIM AT HIS BASE LEVEL! HOW THE HELL DO YOU SUGGEST THEY GET OUT OF THIS ONE?!” He tried to get out a response as he shook back and forth wildly, “Just-keep-wa-tching-the-ma-tch.” As Goll had a meltdown up in the stands, Henry was struggling to stand on the field. His left arm had been rendered little more than a clump of bruised flesh and powdered bone, the mangled limb twisted at a truly sickening angle. The rest of his exposed form was bruised, bloodied and battered, micro cuts crisscrossed his frame alongside deeper gashes and rents in his flesh from the many blows he had endured over the course of the fight. And now he stood, staring up at his opponent, stronger than ever, like a stone wall, waiting for Henry to shatter himself on his now indomitable stature. And yet, the light still burned in Henry’s mind. Like an everlasting flame, the spark of warmth, of passion and determination still burned in Henry’s soul. He would see this fight through, no matter the odds stacked against him, or the forces that sought to block his path, he would endure. It did not matter to him that one of his arms had been mangled. The god could have a leg, if they wanted, perhaps even both. As long as he could raise his sword, he could still fight. And if he could fight, he could win. All it would take, is one good shot. “I would advise you to surrender now. Perhaps they’ll let you keep your life.” Camulus suggested, a deep grimace on his face. Planting his sword in the cracks of the stone, Henry propped himself up on the blade, his muscle screaming for release, yet he could not stop. He strained to smile, his eyes bleary as he looked at his adversary. “I’m sorry,” he declared, pride creeping into his voice, “but a King bows to no one, not mortal, and since the gods show themselves cruel and fickle, not even them. As a leader, I would be a disgrace if I chose any path other than battle.” Camulus processed his opponent’s words for a second, then a toothy grin stretched on his face, one of pride and excitement, but more worryingly, one of sheer bloodlust, “Then we’re of the same mind.” Camulus’ image blurred as he seemed to vanish into thin air. Confusion didn’t even have time to set in, as the god’s fist smashed into the plate of armour protecting Henry torso just below the sternum. The shock wave of the blow boomed throughout the stadium. Henry heaved as the hit knocked him away, but before he could go very far, a nanosecond after the punch, the sole of Camulus’ foot slammed into Henry’s face brutalizing his nose and adding more momentum in addition to the punch, sending him clear across the ring, crashing into the walls and the arena. Henry hacked up a glob of blood as his head spun for the 1-2 combo of devastation. Camulus sauntered toward Henry as if he were taking a stroll through the fields. The image vanished, before appearing directly above Henry in an instant. A wicked grin near split Camulus’ face as he began to hammer down on Henry’s form. All Henry could do was shell up in hopes to stave off the onslaught. The blows came in a million a second, embedding him deeper into the stone as the armour continued to crumple under the pressure. “It seems Camulus has this battle won.” Andrasta commented, her tone pointedly neutral. “Yes, but at what cost?” Cnabetius answered, his voice wavering as he was on the verge of tears. “The little one is right,” Caturix answered, “that form may give him great physical might, but it comes at the cost of a deteriorating mental state.” Lugh spoke up. “And you would know about this?” he prodded, trying to get more information out of the Battle King. Caturix’s jaw clenched as he watched the fight intently, his mind and body on edge from the brutal display Swinging his arm wide, he dug his arm into the arena and dragged it through the stone, palming the side of his opponent’s head and sending them flying through the air, before quickly crashing into the ground with a sickening thud. Seeing his fallen foe splayed across the ground, Camulus crouched down and tensed, as if he were an apex predator waiting for the right moment to strike his prey. Henry, meanwhile, was struggling to breathe after the bombardment of blows. He heaved as he struggled to rise to his feet, the misshapen armour now digging into his body at odd angles. His knees were shaking as the struggled to rise to his feet. In an instant, his adversary was again upon him, battering with every kind of blow at every angle one could think of. Punches, kick, elbows, knees, chops, Camulus even made use of the spikes and blades on his knuckledusters, raking and slashing them across any exposed flesh he could see. Henry struggled to withstand the hail of blows, each hits threatening to knock him over. He couldn’t dodge the assault, he could barely block or even see the hits. The sheer speed and ferocity of the onslaught made it nigh impossible to even find an opportunity to counter, let alone pull it off successfully. Camulus began to laugh uproariously, seemingly enjoying the punishment he was inflicting upon his prey, almost relishing in the game of life and death. Each blow forced Henry back, his will struggling to keep him from being knocked clean off his feet. A punch smashed into Henry’s stomach, making Henry wretch as he struggled to keep his stomach contents from being violently forced from his body. An instant later, an upper cut hammered into his jaw with the might of a catapult, launching his body high into the air. Henry’s head wrung like a gong as not even a moment later, Camulus was directly above him. Henry tried to raise his sword to strike at his foe, but he found it kicked away as Camulus began to spin, gaining momentum as he prepared to strike his opponent down. As his fists came down, for just a moment, the metals shone like diamonds in the sunlight. [Colchester Crash] This time, there was no defence, no counter to the blow. It connected squarely into Henry’s chest, as the blow slammed down both combatants like a meteor. The ground was blasted to pieces as small rock were smashed to dust in the wind, and largerocks sent flying in every direction. The building seemed to be cracking apart, sending both god and man alike into a panic as they rushed to either escape or stop the damage from becoming worse. The sound boomed throughout the entire Realm as the dust settled into a thick cloud that covered the arena. Several moments passed as the cloud slowly died away to reveal the carnage. What ever hadn’t been destroyed before the impact as certainly pulverised now. The floor was a mess, rock jutting up from the earth at random intervals, as if they were whales breaching the surface of the sea. Cracks like spider webs sectioned the ground, transforming the terrain into a grid of madness. It was from that chaos one of the combatants forced themselves into the light. The rocks moved and shifted, giving way to reveal Camulus almost completely unharmed. Physically, at least. Mentally it was clear that something was not right. His eyes were red deeply bloodshot and demented, his grin splitting his face as his teeth slowly grinded together. If his sanity hadn’t fled him before, it was certainly gone now. “Uh, guys”, Cnabetius stammered, “I don’t like that look he has.” “It’s quite worrisome.” Andrasta replied, a slight warble in her voice from fear. “Most worrisome.” Lugh added. Meanwhile, Caturix began to shake, the pace of his breath increasing steadily as he took in the sight, his worst nightmare come back to haunt him. ‘Dammit, I knew this would happen, I knew that if that form was released it would be the end for all of us.’ He remembered that day as if he were living it. The day when the true God of War was decided. The great battles of unification had taken millennia, dozens, if not hundred of God’s staking their claim as the one true God of War. It was an intense and bloody affair, but at the end, it had come down to two men, two unbroken warriors; The Battle King, Caturix and the Untameable Flame, Camulus. It had been a battle that had been brewing for centuries, and in Caturix’s mind, it did not disappoint. For days, the two warred, battering each other bloody with everything they had in their arsenal. [Magh Ithe] https://preview.redd.it/0r71zysrx71d1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=70dfb70dbc3ab6c98510e84bdf98f1576ee27fde [Cicollui Clothesline] https://preview.redd.it/pijyzwkiz71d1.png?width=4096&format=png&auto=webp&s=2ac76f796bdb6a771ae5610b9d04cad53d6a266a [Helvetii] https://preview.redd.it/20lqcvwjz71d1.png?width=4096&format=png&auto=webp&s=b61ff27d99b8dbfc33cbe1a5f4d86ab91cb94478 Caturix hit Camulus with every attack in his arsenal, yet the kid refused to fall, refused to yield. Instead, the young God only used each blow as motivation to hit back harder [Colchester Crash] https://preview.redd.it/ctfzhvxzx71d1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=69fe9294178bdd12e42c8ebec7681c8076beeaf8 [Gae Pretannia] https://preview.redd.it/09zykjugz71d1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=d294b99e7cf9aebfa054d983c93c8f7c279b7e25 [Sacred Fire] https://preview.redd.it/rudzl0z8z71d1.png?width=4096&format=png&auto=webp&s=6660480e1a6b17f44936e9c2ad18be239d1e433b Blow after blow, each stronger than the last. But just as Camulus refused to fall, neither did Caturix. Even [Across the Channel], professed by many to be the knockout blow against him was not actually enough to drop him, not on it’s own. In fact, as the battle drew to it’s close, it seemed as if Caturix was finally beginning to get the better of his rival. He hit another [Magh Ithe] flush into Camulus’s chest. How many he had hit at that point was lost to Caturix, he lost count after 36. But this time, after so much punishment, Camulus finally looked as if he was about to drop. ‘Just one more.’ Caturix thought tiredly, yet hopefully to himself. ‘Just one more hit, and he might finally go down’. Caturix moved in, charging up a final blow, ready to finally put an end to this. “Eat this! [Europa: Overlord]” He launched the move with full might. The mere force of the group rending it asunder. Only to find a fist connecting squarely with his jaw. Now, Caturix had endured the feeling of a punch countless of his millennia of combat. He had endured countless punches in this fight alone. So it it is all the more notable that this punches, out of the uncountable masses, was the one he recognised about all others. He remembered it for one simple reason. Never before, and never since , had any one blow struck him as hard as that one punch. At that moment, Caturix knew one painful, and consuming truth. He was going to lose. The Camulus struck with [Across the Channel]. Whilst the first one had been impactful, this second flurry carried with it far greater speed and power, too great for even the battle king to withstand. It was as if Camulus had gathered a second wind, twice as strong as before. The final blow smashed into Caturix’s temple, sending his brain spinning through several dimensions as the battle king, after so long, finally fell. Camulus was the victor. Yet he did not stop. Instead, Camulus leapt upon his foe with ferocity, like a rabid animal tearing at a carcass. He began to pummel the battle king mercilessly, wanting his pound of flesh from his opponent. It was here, up close, that Caturix could see the change his opponent underwent, the strange blue markings that were spread across his body like war paint, and his deeply bloodshot eyes. The beating was relentless, as the new monster sought to punish Caturix for daring to challenge it. He knew he had to do something to seal this monster that had been unleashed from with Camulus’ soul, lest he rampage throughout the Realm. [Sheathing of the Blade] Caturix stabbed into Camulus at specific spots with the spikes on his gauntlets, finding the vital points where energy was drawn from, and sealing them. He would not know whether it worked in the moment, as he passed out a second later. It would only be when he awoke days later, did he find out his success. It would be the first and last time he would fight Camulus for the top. Not because he saw himself as lesser, but because he did not want to risk unleashing that terror again And now, that terror was staring him in the face once again. He could see that same all-consuming desire for blood and destruction. He tensed preparing to fight the one thing that put fear into his heart. He was bought out of his thought by a loud WHAM that shook the stadium as Thor rose to his feet. The God of Thunder stared down at his one challenger, ready for that long awaited rematch. “Ah, w-well...” Heimdall stuttered, still feeling from the chaos that had just occurred, “It would appear that the winner of Round 1 is...” Camulus’ Attention was now laser focused on Thor, tensing as he prepared to leap towards a new opponent. “The Celtic God of War...” Ready, set- “Camu-” A breath could be heard from the rubble. It was a quiet, rasping breath, yet it could be heard with clarity across the entire stadium. Everyone froze as they realised where that breath came from. The rocks shifted as out from the rubble emerged the battered, but still living form of Henry V. “Damn, that was too close for comfort!” Lancelot huffed, still trying to get his wits about him, “You almost got pasted there, and that means we both would have died, you damn fool. Not like that matters much now...” Camulus’ head turned to regard the bloodied king, salivating with demented glee, ready for the continued brutality. “Since we’re gonna be dead in a few seconds regardless.” As Henry lay there, broken and bloodied, he could hear voices from the audience. “HENRY!” his father yelled, “Don’t you give up now, boy! You are the best of all of us! Show that god what's what?” “Let that god know the might of the English!” Henry VII shouted. “Show them what a real warrior can do!” Richard Lionheart roared. “C’Mon dad, you can do this” Henry VI cheered. Hotspur stepped forward, gathering his breath before screaming to the Heavens, “MONMOUTH! What do want to do?! What is your one true desire?!” “To win, my way.” Pushing off his good arm, he strained to sit up, collecting his breath as he did so. “Never surrender, never retreat.” “Oh sure,” Lancelot responded, the sarcasm layered on very thick, “and how exactly are we supposed to do that.” Henry slowly stood, carefully balancing his weight between the sword and his weary legs. “There is one thing we can do... just one.” https://preview.redd.it/30opimuez71d1.png?width=4096&format=png&auto=webp&s=8725c7ced4d0cd872401fed592c0d97a92102b10 Closing his eyes, he focused deeply, bringing out every thought every emotion he had ever had, then let all of them flow from his mind. He let complete and total calm take hold in that moment. There was no emotion, there was no doubt or second guessing, there was only truth. Absolute, irrevocable truth. The deepest instinct, the greatest of them all. “[Royal instinct]” Less than a second later, Camulus had leapt to within striking distance, ready to end his foe. But whereas Henry was completely overwhelmed before, now his clarity was absolute. He knew exact what would happen, how each and every muscle within Camulus’ body would move before they even did so. Henry knew what Camulus’ second move would be before he even began his first. Camulus shot out with a wild punch, which the more focused Henry deflected with ease. If he had use of his other arm, he may have even followed up with a punch of his own. Instead, he simply let Camulus’ momentum work against him. The god overshot, and was sent crashing into the ground a few times before slamming into the wall. As the crowd looked on in shock at what had just happened, they turned to look at the man who had done it. He had change, it was clear to see for all through the change on his eyes, once filled with brown tones, now a crystalline, pale silver. The sword had morphed to reflect this new state, reflecting the mind of a king. Whatever this was, it had shifted the tide of battle yet again. https://preview.redd.it/i40thhpcz71d1.png?width=4096&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e2d91981867bbda4480edf1c3da008a9146e66a “Damn! What is this?!” Lancelot cried, “I feel my head is full of everything and nothing at the same time!” “[Royal Instinct]! A fine tuning of the instincts within all of us. By using this we, can reject all unnecessary thoughts and information, both new and old, as well as higher awareness and clarity of vital information. On the absolute truth of the situation will be known to us, truth we’ll know before the lie can even be made.” Camulus soon broke his way free from the rock and charged. He leapt forward again, this time with an elbow, again deflected. Again, Camulus skid across the rocks for several metres, but this time, he was able to right himself and charge in again. But again, the resulting attack was deflected. This repeated several more times, each attack and recovery was faster than the last. But Henry parried them all with perfect clarity, as he bided his time for the perfect moment. After another parry, Camulus righted himself and prepared the blast into Henry at full speed, all thought of technique gone from the raving gods mind. Henry readied his blade for his own strike. The mere tap of Camulus’ foot sent shock waves through the ground as he rocketed forward and max speed. But Henry was undeterred. Swiftly parrying the blow, he brought his arm in and then swung out. The pommel connected directly with Camulus’ temple, sending the force of the impact through his head, almost seeming to paralyse the god, as he crashed and skidded across the ground limply. For the first time since the transformation occurred, Henry had seized the advantage. ‘Where the hell am I?’ was Camulus’ first weary thought after being shocked back to sanity. ‘Ohhh fuck, my head hurts worse than that time me and Cna went drinking at the place the humans called Mamucium.’ Taking a moment to clear the thunderstorm in his head, he scanned over the decimated arena, his dizziness turning to confusion. ‘OK seriously, what the hell happened here?’ Pushing himself from the rubble, he survey the situation, trying to understand what was going on. Then suddenly, his skull felt as if it was about to burst, and his eyes swan with illusions and distortions of reality, hearing voices whispering behind his ears. Camulus clutched at his head, forcing the thoughts down. After a minute of excruciating pain, he finally returned to reality. 'Dammit, what's going on with me? Focus! You have a fight to win!' “Damn, we might have knocked him out cold. I’m loath to say it, but I think you were right, we may have a chance after all.” Lancelot commented, almost in awe of the current situation. Henry chuckled, “Wouldn’t have figured you to be one to admit when you were wrong.” Lancelot froze for a moment, before scoffing at Henry’s comment, “Just because you were right doesn’t mean I was wrong, jackass!” For a moment, Henry laughed at Lancelot’s Haughtiness, before that cheer was replaced by boiling pain, as he dropped to a knee. Lancelot was confused for a moment, before he felt a warm liquid pour from his eyes. As he dabbed at his eyes, he saw the crimson colouration that quickly gave away what that liquid was. Blood. “What the hell is this? What’s going on?!” Henry stammered as he spoke, still trying to get his wits about him. “A-ah yes, t-here is a cost t-to using the form.” https://preview.redd.it/bzcy3g8vz71d1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=a7682905a9a922d062639ce0d01afe3c1fff92e6 “And what would that be?!” “Working the mind at such an acute level can result in overload if stressed too hard, or used too long. I’ve been used to using against humans...” “...and you just now used it against a god.” Lancelot finish. “Y-yes” “Jesus Christ,” Lancelot mumbled, “WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!” he them screamed. “I’ve made peace with the fact that even if I win, I likely won’t live much longer anyway. So right now, in this moment, I don’t care how much damage I do to myself, or how much time I have left is eaten away. As long as I have enough to win this fight, long enough to bring humanity, and the people I care for, one step closer to salvation, it matters not.” Both Camulus and Henry stood, readying their guard, their bodies battered and bruised, yet their spirits unbroken, they both knew one thing. Win or lose, this fight was nearing its end. |
2024.05.18 19:21 Globaltronx 🌟 Enter the Realm of Crestfallen: A Medieval Fantasy Survival Epic Created by a Neuroscientist & Devoted Gamer! ⚔️🛡️
Introduction:
Good marrow and greetings people of the Realm! My name is Curtis Ashford and I am a game developer, father of 3 (soon to be 4), and Neuroscientist that publishes in Alzheimer's disease research. My background is in making cognitive tests that are used in medical research with a focus on reliability, precision, and accuracy of assessing brain function over time. I have been gaming my whole life, almost 40 years and my early favorites include Sierra's Kings Quest, The Prince of Persia, and Duke Nukem.
A Player Built Throne Room by: Patty Brown (great work!)
Player Built Tavern!! by: Sir Vibes the Positive, created last night!
Snap-able Castle Walls - Lots of Building Pieces by: Player Unknown
I am a huge fan of the early Diablo franchise 1 and 2, World of Warcraft, and survival games like Rust. I try to play almost every title I can get my hands on! Base building in survival games has a special place in my heart and I love the gathering of resources and making something that is functional and I can be proud of. That is what I am trying to capture with my game Crestfallen.
The Graveyard NOOB Starting Area is a Bloodbath, created by Bloodbath Studios :)
Blending my Alzheimer's research with game dev, cool Quest Item! - The Skull of Eternal Dementia... Terrifying
But what is Crestfallen?
Crestfallen: Medieval Survival is a place to be whatever you want; Role-play out medieval fantasies, explore the creations of our imagination, and have fun while playing alongside others in an ever evolving universe. I think multiplayer interactivity is such an amazing part of gaming, building and fighting others makes the game feel very special.
Want to try it out for free? Download the demo on steam here - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2293680/Crestfallen_Medieval_Survival/
If you like it and want to join our multiplayer servers before launch and help us find bugs and add ideas to the discord you are more than welcome. If you like it I would really appreciate a Wishlist to help with my visibility as we approach Steams Next Fest where I will be streaming for 6 hours.
There are quests to explore, portals to venture into, factions of enemies to fight against, and people to make lasting memories with. You can form parties, guilds, and interact with each other with in game voice chat and be whatever you want to be.
The Map of IronGuard Summit
Choose a progression into magic, farming, or master the blade with a skill and stat point progression system to level up. As we grow out our team we look forward to expanding the maps, adding more magic, and more everything as we move along in our development. Some of my favorite parts of the game are fighting the harder knights and bowmen up at the Castle and attempting to overthrow the Evil King within and his (SPOILER).
Full Plate Armor - Tons of Crafting Stations and Craftables
I was inspired to make this game by a friend who I met in the Medieval Survival game Reign of Kings. We used to host The Kingdom of Camelot server together and as Keeper of Justice I would publicly execute cheaters with our community, great memories! Seeing the game not progress, but loving the core concepts of it, I took it upon myself to try to make a similar type of game with more interactive elements and PvE areas to explore with updated graphics in Unreal Engine 5.
Crystals of Cinder and Glacial Knowledge
Ever Unfolding Destiny:
Review our Living Roadmap - The Path of Ever-Unfolding Destiny
Growing up I loved to build with Legos, as a lot of kids do, and I was very fond of creating huge Castles and destroying them with my besieging armies. Castles and base building are so fun for me and it's very exciting how I have been able to get it to work online in a multiplayer setting where people can build huge Kingdoms together. By utilizing a snapping building system the options are endless for the Castle pieces we can add and the different tiered structures / workstations to build around the Castle.
HUGE Castle Walls
In addition we have been adding farming, cooking, and incredibly intricate crafting recipes to progress your character as you explore more difficult areas and fight more dangerous monsters. I plan to devote at least the next 10 years of my life to building this alongside my fledgling community that shares the passion for building, crafting, intertwined with the medieval genre.
How To Decorate A Castle
Time for a Bloodbath:
A Starting Boss to Avoid Spoilers Demon Lord Morgrate and his UBER rare glowing sword
In addition to building another major focus for me is on a new fighting system that feels realistic, bloody, and gruesome. I love the feeling we have created by researching medieval combat and using animations that are inspired from the medieval era. It still needs a bit more blood in my opinion but the squelches and screams really make a rewarding experience when in a fight against a bunch of enemies.
Another massive base build!
The fire magic feels great to wield but had to nerf our meteor storm as it was discouraging for players to have their bases wiped out so easily with fiery death. Siege weapons like ballista, catapult, and trebuchet are starting to work well, with the trebuchet being one of my personal favorites with how it turned out. My roadmap includes the addition of siege towers and battering rams in the near future.
To The Dungeons:
Any idea and all feedback is welcome, I really appreciate the criticism as it helps me learn and grow. Making this game involving the community is so important for me as it helps it grow in a positive non toxic direction. This was almost published by Snail Games USA, but I declined the offer based on their reviews and reputation of their CEO cheating in ARK.
The Keepers of Justice WILL Prevail!! - My Quest System Says So At Least
My strategy to help combat cheaters and toxicity is by hosting official whitelisted servers that are managed by something similar to DND Dungeon Masters! Having active admins that can manipulate world variables and help unfold the story of a server with different admin tools could make for some very interesting and innovative online multiplayer gameplay.
This has been a very hard 2 years for me, I have done 3 point studio lighting on thousands of our assets to make the icons beautiful, integrated some of the most amazing systems ever built, and have had the honor and blessing of receiving help from hundreds... maybe thousands of talented geniuses from all around the world. Ensuring everything works well, looks great, and sounds amazing has been a true scientific task and to see player build, craft, and create amazing things and enjoy their time humbles me and bring great joy to my heart.
This Tavern may look like a bar to you but to me its something indescribable, a collection of my favorite assets adjusted and fine tuned to be craftable, placeable, and functional... have a seat... all chairs and thrones are fully functional. It is my dream to create a massive fully intractable world and we are well on the way!
Past Work:
I made my first game Best in the West in Unity, a 10 man micro royale where you ride an old steam train into a wild west town and as the train whistle blows and the doors swing open it's a run and gun em down shoot em up cowboy style - free to play. Unity was not very fun for me and after switching to Unreal Engine I felt that I really got to focus on the game development and not the optimization of textures and culling properties.
So lets press on together and keep doing our best to bring people together through building, adventure, and making a GG (GOOD GAME NOOB!) with love. <3
Now that we made it possible to build in lakes - NEW DRAW BRIDGE COMING SOON SO EPIC!!
All the criticism on my steam page I have personally addressed and appreciate as it gives me a chance to listen and learn. The critical feedback has been very helpful to identify problems and brainstorm with players and strategize to fix things.
Official Crestfallen Logo
"Omnes Una Manet Nox."
The Dark Night Awaits Us All.
-King Burkheart The Keeper of Justice
"JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED!!"
Join our community in Discord and help us make the game better, all ideas and people are welcome - https://discord.gg/89jpe8YyYj
I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the moderator: RMouldoun for helping guide my path here including the people who rightfully flamed my first post.
Thank you to newagedne for helping me keep things professional and improve, I always appreciate the opportunity to learn.
submitted by Globaltronx to BaseBuildingGames [link] [comments]
Good marrow and greetings people of the Realm! My name is Curtis Ashford and I am a game developer, father of 3 (soon to be 4), and Neuroscientist that publishes in Alzheimer's disease research. My background is in making cognitive tests that are used in medical research with a focus on reliability, precision, and accuracy of assessing brain function over time. I have been gaming my whole life, almost 40 years and my early favorites include Sierra's Kings Quest, The Prince of Persia, and Duke Nukem.
A Player Built Throne Room by: Patty Brown (great work!)
Player Built Tavern!! by: Sir Vibes the Positive, created last night!
Snap-able Castle Walls - Lots of Building Pieces by: Player Unknown
I am a huge fan of the early Diablo franchise 1 and 2, World of Warcraft, and survival games like Rust. I try to play almost every title I can get my hands on! Base building in survival games has a special place in my heart and I love the gathering of resources and making something that is functional and I can be proud of. That is what I am trying to capture with my game Crestfallen.
The Graveyard NOOB Starting Area is a Bloodbath, created by Bloodbath Studios :)
Blending my Alzheimer's research with game dev, cool Quest Item! - The Skull of Eternal Dementia... Terrifying
But what is Crestfallen?
Crestfallen: Medieval Survival is a place to be whatever you want; Role-play out medieval fantasies, explore the creations of our imagination, and have fun while playing alongside others in an ever evolving universe. I think multiplayer interactivity is such an amazing part of gaming, building and fighting others makes the game feel very special.
Want to try it out for free? Download the demo on steam here - https://store.steampowered.com/app/2293680/Crestfallen_Medieval_Survival/
If you like it and want to join our multiplayer servers before launch and help us find bugs and add ideas to the discord you are more than welcome. If you like it I would really appreciate a Wishlist to help with my visibility as we approach Steams Next Fest where I will be streaming for 6 hours.
There are quests to explore, portals to venture into, factions of enemies to fight against, and people to make lasting memories with. You can form parties, guilds, and interact with each other with in game voice chat and be whatever you want to be.
The Map of IronGuard Summit
Choose a progression into magic, farming, or master the blade with a skill and stat point progression system to level up. As we grow out our team we look forward to expanding the maps, adding more magic, and more everything as we move along in our development. Some of my favorite parts of the game are fighting the harder knights and bowmen up at the Castle and attempting to overthrow the Evil King within and his (SPOILER).
Full Plate Armor - Tons of Crafting Stations and Craftables
I was inspired to make this game by a friend who I met in the Medieval Survival game Reign of Kings. We used to host The Kingdom of Camelot server together and as Keeper of Justice I would publicly execute cheaters with our community, great memories! Seeing the game not progress, but loving the core concepts of it, I took it upon myself to try to make a similar type of game with more interactive elements and PvE areas to explore with updated graphics in Unreal Engine 5.
Crystals of Cinder and Glacial Knowledge
Ever Unfolding Destiny:
Review our Living Roadmap - The Path of Ever-Unfolding Destiny
Growing up I loved to build with Legos, as a lot of kids do, and I was very fond of creating huge Castles and destroying them with my besieging armies. Castles and base building are so fun for me and it's very exciting how I have been able to get it to work online in a multiplayer setting where people can build huge Kingdoms together. By utilizing a snapping building system the options are endless for the Castle pieces we can add and the different tiered structures / workstations to build around the Castle.
HUGE Castle Walls
In addition we have been adding farming, cooking, and incredibly intricate crafting recipes to progress your character as you explore more difficult areas and fight more dangerous monsters. I plan to devote at least the next 10 years of my life to building this alongside my fledgling community that shares the passion for building, crafting, intertwined with the medieval genre.
How To Decorate A Castle
Time for a Bloodbath:
A Starting Boss to Avoid Spoilers Demon Lord Morgrate and his UBER rare glowing sword
In addition to building another major focus for me is on a new fighting system that feels realistic, bloody, and gruesome. I love the feeling we have created by researching medieval combat and using animations that are inspired from the medieval era. It still needs a bit more blood in my opinion but the squelches and screams really make a rewarding experience when in a fight against a bunch of enemies.
Another massive base build!
The fire magic feels great to wield but had to nerf our meteor storm as it was discouraging for players to have their bases wiped out so easily with fiery death. Siege weapons like ballista, catapult, and trebuchet are starting to work well, with the trebuchet being one of my personal favorites with how it turned out. My roadmap includes the addition of siege towers and battering rams in the near future.
To The Dungeons:
Any idea and all feedback is welcome, I really appreciate the criticism as it helps me learn and grow. Making this game involving the community is so important for me as it helps it grow in a positive non toxic direction. This was almost published by Snail Games USA, but I declined the offer based on their reviews and reputation of their CEO cheating in ARK.
The Keepers of Justice WILL Prevail!! - My Quest System Says So At Least
My strategy to help combat cheaters and toxicity is by hosting official whitelisted servers that are managed by something similar to DND Dungeon Masters! Having active admins that can manipulate world variables and help unfold the story of a server with different admin tools could make for some very interesting and innovative online multiplayer gameplay.
This has been a very hard 2 years for me, I have done 3 point studio lighting on thousands of our assets to make the icons beautiful, integrated some of the most amazing systems ever built, and have had the honor and blessing of receiving help from hundreds... maybe thousands of talented geniuses from all around the world. Ensuring everything works well, looks great, and sounds amazing has been a true scientific task and to see player build, craft, and create amazing things and enjoy their time humbles me and bring great joy to my heart.
This Tavern may look like a bar to you but to me its something indescribable, a collection of my favorite assets adjusted and fine tuned to be craftable, placeable, and functional... have a seat... all chairs and thrones are fully functional. It is my dream to create a massive fully intractable world and we are well on the way!
Past Work:
I made my first game Best in the West in Unity, a 10 man micro royale where you ride an old steam train into a wild west town and as the train whistle blows and the doors swing open it's a run and gun em down shoot em up cowboy style - free to play. Unity was not very fun for me and after switching to Unreal Engine I felt that I really got to focus on the game development and not the optimization of textures and culling properties.
So lets press on together and keep doing our best to bring people together through building, adventure, and making a GG (GOOD GAME NOOB!) with love. <3
Now that we made it possible to build in lakes - NEW DRAW BRIDGE COMING SOON SO EPIC!!
All the criticism on my steam page I have personally addressed and appreciate as it gives me a chance to listen and learn. The critical feedback has been very helpful to identify problems and brainstorm with players and strategize to fix things.
Official Crestfallen Logo
"Omnes Una Manet Nox."
The Dark Night Awaits Us All.
-King Burkheart The Keeper of Justice
"JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED!!"
Join our community in Discord and help us make the game better, all ideas and people are welcome - https://discord.gg/89jpe8YyYj
I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the moderator: RMouldoun for helping guide my path here including the people who rightfully flamed my first post.
Thank you to newagedne for helping me keep things professional and improve, I always appreciate the opportunity to learn.
2024.05.18 18:55 ScienceStyled Leonardo da Vinci and the Fortnite Perspective: The Wild Geometry of Art
Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up and prepare for the rollercoaster of your academic lives! Today, we're diving headfirst into the geometric rabbit hole of perspective in art history, from the Renaissance to the digital delirium of modern design. This ride will be like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube while bungee jumping—exhilarating, slightly terrifying, and probably mind-bending.
Let's kick things off with a nod to our Renaissance homie, Leonardo da Vinci. Picture him: a guy so ahead of his time, he made Michelangelo look like he was doodling with crayons. Da Vinci was the OG of perspective, using geometry to turn flat surfaces into mind-blowing 3D spaces. Imagine the Mona Lisa stepping out of her frame and doing the moonwalk—thanks to Leo's genius, it's almost believable.
Now, perspective in art is all about fooling your eyeballs. You know that feeling when you stare at an optical illusion, and your brain starts doing somersaults? That’s the magic of geometry at work. The Renaissance artists were like the original tricksters, using vanishing points and linear perspective to create depth. It's like the difference between watching a Kardashian reality show in 2D and diving into a VR Fortnite match where buildings, landscapes, and llamas pop out at you from every angle.
So, what's the big deal with these vanishing points? Picture this: you're standing in the middle of a road that stretches out into the horizon. As you look ahead, the road seems to narrow and finally disappear at a single point. That's the vanishing point. Leonardo and his pals used this concept to make their paintings look realistic. They turned canvases into windows, showing scenes that seemed to stretch out infinitely.
Now, imagine you’re in a room designed by M.C. Escher, the grandmaster of mind-melting perspective. His works are like the architectural equivalent of a fever dream after binge-watching too much Rick and Morty. Escher took the rules of perspective and twisted them like a pretzel, creating impossible staircases that go nowhere and everywhere all at once. His art is like a visual version of trying to understand quantum mechanics while riding a merry-go-round.
But let's not get too lost in the trippy world of Escher. We need to understand the basics before we can start bending reality. So, grab your pencils and energy drinks, because it's time to create our own perspective drawings. Start with a simple one-point perspective. Draw a horizon line, place a single vanishing point, and sketch some basic shapes receding into the distance. It's like playing Minecraft, but on paper—minus the Creepers and Endermen.
Once you’ve mastered the one-point perspective, crank up the difficulty like you’re switching from Tetris to Dark Souls. Try your hand at two-point perspective. This time, you’ve got two vanishing points on the horizon line. It’s like juggling two flaming swords while riding a unicycle—challenging but ridiculously cool once you get the hang of it. Use it to draw buildings and streets that look like they could be straight out of a Batman comic book.
Ready for the final boss level? Three-point perspective is where things get seriously intense. Add a third vanishing point above or below the horizon line, and boom—you’ve got skyscrapers that soar into the sky or plunge into the depths. Think Gotham City meets Blade Runner, with a dash of Doctor Strange’s Inception-style cityscapes. Your drawings will have that dramatic flair that makes people go, “Whoa, did you just bend the fabric of reality?”
Speaking of bending reality, let’s talk about modern design. Today’s artists and designers are like the tech-savvy offspring of Da Vinci and Escher, using digital tools to create stunning 3D visuals. From video games to virtual reality, perspective geometry is everywhere. Take Fortnite, for instance—a game where players build structures with an uncanny sense of depth and realism. The designers use the same principles of perspective that Leonardo used, but with the added benefit of 21st-century tech.
Let’s not forget the architects who create real-world buildings that make you feel like you’ve stepped into a sci-fi movie. They use advanced geometry to design structures that defy gravity and common sense. Imagine walking through a building that twists and turns like a Rubik’s Cube, with each step revealing new perspectives. These architects are like modern-day wizards, conjuring spaces that boggle the mind and delight the senses.
In the realm of learning science with art, perspective geometry is the ultimate crossover episode. It’s where math and creativity meet, shake hands, and throw a rager. Understanding perspective not only makes you a better artist but also sharpens your spatial awareness and problem-solving skills. It’s like unlocking a secret level in your brain, where you can visualize complex concepts and bring them to life.
Now, here’s a challenge for all you budding artists out there: create your own perspective drawing, starting with the basics and moving on to more complex designs. Start with a simple street scene, then add buildings, trees, and maybe even a superhero or two soaring through the sky. Push your limits and try incorporating three-point perspective to create a cityscape that would make even Escher jealous.
Remember, the key to mastering perspective is practice and a healthy dose of imagination. Don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes—after all, even Da Vinci probably had his share of doodles that didn’t quite make the cut. Embrace the chaos, channel your inner mad scientist, and let the geometry of perspective guide you to new artistic heights.
So, there you have it, folks! The wild, wacky world of perspective geometry, from the Renaissance to Fortnite. Keep those pencils sharp, those energy drinks flowing, and always remember: art is the ultimate playground for your imagination. Now go forth and conquer the canvas like the brilliant, slightly caffeinated geniuses you are!
submitted by ScienceStyled to u/ScienceStyled [link] [comments]
Let's kick things off with a nod to our Renaissance homie, Leonardo da Vinci. Picture him: a guy so ahead of his time, he made Michelangelo look like he was doodling with crayons. Da Vinci was the OG of perspective, using geometry to turn flat surfaces into mind-blowing 3D spaces. Imagine the Mona Lisa stepping out of her frame and doing the moonwalk—thanks to Leo's genius, it's almost believable.
Now, perspective in art is all about fooling your eyeballs. You know that feeling when you stare at an optical illusion, and your brain starts doing somersaults? That’s the magic of geometry at work. The Renaissance artists were like the original tricksters, using vanishing points and linear perspective to create depth. It's like the difference between watching a Kardashian reality show in 2D and diving into a VR Fortnite match where buildings, landscapes, and llamas pop out at you from every angle.
So, what's the big deal with these vanishing points? Picture this: you're standing in the middle of a road that stretches out into the horizon. As you look ahead, the road seems to narrow and finally disappear at a single point. That's the vanishing point. Leonardo and his pals used this concept to make their paintings look realistic. They turned canvases into windows, showing scenes that seemed to stretch out infinitely.
Now, imagine you’re in a room designed by M.C. Escher, the grandmaster of mind-melting perspective. His works are like the architectural equivalent of a fever dream after binge-watching too much Rick and Morty. Escher took the rules of perspective and twisted them like a pretzel, creating impossible staircases that go nowhere and everywhere all at once. His art is like a visual version of trying to understand quantum mechanics while riding a merry-go-round.
But let's not get too lost in the trippy world of Escher. We need to understand the basics before we can start bending reality. So, grab your pencils and energy drinks, because it's time to create our own perspective drawings. Start with a simple one-point perspective. Draw a horizon line, place a single vanishing point, and sketch some basic shapes receding into the distance. It's like playing Minecraft, but on paper—minus the Creepers and Endermen.
Once you’ve mastered the one-point perspective, crank up the difficulty like you’re switching from Tetris to Dark Souls. Try your hand at two-point perspective. This time, you’ve got two vanishing points on the horizon line. It’s like juggling two flaming swords while riding a unicycle—challenging but ridiculously cool once you get the hang of it. Use it to draw buildings and streets that look like they could be straight out of a Batman comic book.
Ready for the final boss level? Three-point perspective is where things get seriously intense. Add a third vanishing point above or below the horizon line, and boom—you’ve got skyscrapers that soar into the sky or plunge into the depths. Think Gotham City meets Blade Runner, with a dash of Doctor Strange’s Inception-style cityscapes. Your drawings will have that dramatic flair that makes people go, “Whoa, did you just bend the fabric of reality?”
Speaking of bending reality, let’s talk about modern design. Today’s artists and designers are like the tech-savvy offspring of Da Vinci and Escher, using digital tools to create stunning 3D visuals. From video games to virtual reality, perspective geometry is everywhere. Take Fortnite, for instance—a game where players build structures with an uncanny sense of depth and realism. The designers use the same principles of perspective that Leonardo used, but with the added benefit of 21st-century tech.
Let’s not forget the architects who create real-world buildings that make you feel like you’ve stepped into a sci-fi movie. They use advanced geometry to design structures that defy gravity and common sense. Imagine walking through a building that twists and turns like a Rubik’s Cube, with each step revealing new perspectives. These architects are like modern-day wizards, conjuring spaces that boggle the mind and delight the senses.
In the realm of learning science with art, perspective geometry is the ultimate crossover episode. It’s where math and creativity meet, shake hands, and throw a rager. Understanding perspective not only makes you a better artist but also sharpens your spatial awareness and problem-solving skills. It’s like unlocking a secret level in your brain, where you can visualize complex concepts and bring them to life.
Now, here’s a challenge for all you budding artists out there: create your own perspective drawing, starting with the basics and moving on to more complex designs. Start with a simple street scene, then add buildings, trees, and maybe even a superhero or two soaring through the sky. Push your limits and try incorporating three-point perspective to create a cityscape that would make even Escher jealous.
Remember, the key to mastering perspective is practice and a healthy dose of imagination. Don’t be afraid to experiment and make mistakes—after all, even Da Vinci probably had his share of doodles that didn’t quite make the cut. Embrace the chaos, channel your inner mad scientist, and let the geometry of perspective guide you to new artistic heights.
So, there you have it, folks! The wild, wacky world of perspective geometry, from the Renaissance to Fortnite. Keep those pencils sharp, those energy drinks flowing, and always remember: art is the ultimate playground for your imagination. Now go forth and conquer the canvas like the brilliant, slightly caffeinated geniuses you are!
2024.05.18 18:52 churrystar Looking for some hidden/unrevealed/mystery works by pharahir and corilannam please
Like the title says, I wanted to re-read some fanfics and found out they were put as "mystery works", hidden 🥺
Three of them were written by Pharahir on AO3, they were about the ship Sheith / Shiro and Keith, characters from the animated show Voltron: Legendary Defender. Two of them involved the Blade of Marmora (and Keith being a member of the Blade), I think one of them was the first (where Keith is having his mating cycle / in heat and Shiro has to help him, they're both in a galra prison, but at the end they escape or are saved by the Blade, I think), and the other was the sequel to this, where Keith helps Shiro with his PTSD and trauma (because of being in the galra prison, being forced to fight the galra battles and all that). The third one by Pharahir was also about Sheith / Shiro and Keith but Shiro is a CEO? who runs into Keith, accidentally making him drop his laptop, so Shiro (sugar daddy) buys him a new laptop, also a bike and other stuff.
And the fanfic by Corilannam (also on AO3) was about the ship Merthur / Merlin and Arthur from the live action show Merlin. It was about Merlin sneaking out of Camelot to go participate on a tournament of mages, Arthur follows him and finds out the truth about Merlin's magic and him being a mage, but they talk about it? and sort things out, and Arthur remains with Merlin until the tournament ends.
If anyone knows where else I can find those, or if anyone has the downloaded epub files to share, I would be very, very thankful! 🙌
submitted by churrystar to DeletedFanfiction [link] [comments]
Three of them were written by Pharahir on AO3, they were about the ship Sheith / Shiro and Keith, characters from the animated show Voltron: Legendary Defender. Two of them involved the Blade of Marmora (and Keith being a member of the Blade), I think one of them was the first (where Keith is having his mating cycle / in heat and Shiro has to help him, they're both in a galra prison, but at the end they escape or are saved by the Blade, I think), and the other was the sequel to this, where Keith helps Shiro with his PTSD and trauma (because of being in the galra prison, being forced to fight the galra battles and all that). The third one by Pharahir was also about Sheith / Shiro and Keith but Shiro is a CEO? who runs into Keith, accidentally making him drop his laptop, so Shiro (sugar daddy) buys him a new laptop, also a bike and other stuff.
And the fanfic by Corilannam (also on AO3) was about the ship Merthur / Merlin and Arthur from the live action show Merlin. It was about Merlin sneaking out of Camelot to go participate on a tournament of mages, Arthur follows him and finds out the truth about Merlin's magic and him being a mage, but they talk about it? and sort things out, and Arthur remains with Merlin until the tournament ends.
If anyone knows where else I can find those, or if anyone has the downloaded epub files to share, I would be very, very thankful! 🙌
2024.05.18 18:46 AloofWriter [FN] Last Resort
Alivia strapped her daggers to her thighs, ensuring the blades were easy to access without impairing her movements. It was hard enough to escape The Order alive, and after I met Richard, I swore I would never go back to my old ways. Now that he's gone, what else am I supposed to do?
Her short auburn hair framed the delicate features of her face, drawing attention to her eyes. Blue as sapphires, those eyes could distract almost as much as the rest of her body. The only thing that marred her beauty was a small scar running across her collarbone, a souvenir from a battle long ago.
She checked the fitting of her leather garb one last time before placing her short bow and quiver on her back, ensuring they were secure. I need to provide for my children. They’re all that matters to me, and I don't know what else to do.
Donning her balaclava, she stepped onto the windowsill. She took one last look at her children fast asleep, then leapt through the window, ready to begin her journey. I have to do this for you two. I would do anything to make you happy.
Alivia approached the mage's keep, leery of any magical traps that might give her away. The manse looked abandoned, with broken windows, chipped paint, and a sagging iron gate. With any luck, it would be empty, making for an easy job.
Even with that hopeful thought, she was just as careful as if it were guarded by a dozen men. She crossed the lawn, sliding into a basement window where the bars looked gnawed off by some sort of monster.
The room was damp, with racks of wine bottles splintered on the floor, their contents long seeped into the cobblestone. Alivia carefully stepped over the broken glass and splinters, making her way to the only door. She checked the door for traps and found a simple conflagration weave. Clumsily, she disabled the trap and stepped into the hall.
Blue light flashed across the ceiling. "Crap," Alivia muttered under her breath as she readied her bow. She wouldn't have missed the enchantment if she hadn't been so rusty. It was layered under the first weave, something only a novice would overlook. But she was no novice and had no excuse for the mistake. She slowly made her way down the only path, ever more careful now that her presence was known.
She came to an ornate door, symbols she couldn't recognize etched along the frame. A thorough check showed no traps. She stepped through, arrow nocked and ready.
An old man sat in front of a fireplace, the Tome of Flame resting on his lap. "So you're the mighty mage that lives in this pile of crap you call a home," Alivia said, sarcasm dripping from her lips as she stepped through the doorway, her arrow pointing at Rothgar. "I’ve come for the Tome of Flame. Just hand it over unless you want the last thing you taste to be my arrow."
Rothgar soaked in the heat from the fireplace, red mist swirling in his eyes. This was his sanctuary, and he would not tolerate intruders. Rage burned within as Rothgar spoke firmly, “You will never leave here alive. You have disgraced my wife's memory by entering this place!”
As the words passed over his lips, Alivia loosed her arrow and dropped the bow to draw her daggers. Her aim was true, but she had learned never to underestimate a mage.
The arrow flew straight for Rothgar’s head. He raised his hand and shot forth a ball of flame, disintegrating the arrow mid-flight. “You call that an attack? A kitten would put up a better fight.” Laughter echoed through each word to taunt her.
Before he could say anything else, Alivia was already on him, one dagger slashing towards his throat, the other stabbing at his ribs. Rothgar dodged the attack and threw out a quick wave of heat to distance himself from his attacker. Once distanced, he took in more heat and threw another fireball.
Alivia barely escaped behind a table as the fireball exploded on the wall behind her, throwing hot stone everywhere. She was going to have to be more careful not to underestimate the mage's speed and agility. That last mistake had almost cost her life.
She rolled from the table to a pillar, subtly throwing one of her daggers mid-roll. The table burst into flames as she eluded another of Rothgar’s fireballs.
Rothgar barely sidestepped the dagger as it flew past, cutting a shallow gash into his shoulder. Blood dripped from the wound. “Much better. You actually drew blood with that attack. This might actually be a decent fight after all.”
But even as he spoke those words, his eyes glazed over from the poison coursing through his veins. He fell to one knee and then toppled over onto his side. Alivia slowly approached the dying man, wary of a last desperate attack.
“I’ll be taking your tome now. Apparently, I need to have a conversation with my buyer. This was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab,” Alivia said coldly. She never wanted anyone to get hurt, but she had to do what needed to be done. Besides, her heart was long dead to the guilt of murder.
As she bent down to take the tome, Rothgar stared at her with a look of relief. With his last dying breath and a twinkle in his eye, he spoke. “I was too much of a coward to take my own life. Oh, how I have missed my dear Elizabeth. Thanks to you, I can finally see her again.” With those last words, he faded from this world, his soul finally free.
submitted by AloofWriter to shortstories [link] [comments]
Her short auburn hair framed the delicate features of her face, drawing attention to her eyes. Blue as sapphires, those eyes could distract almost as much as the rest of her body. The only thing that marred her beauty was a small scar running across her collarbone, a souvenir from a battle long ago.
She checked the fitting of her leather garb one last time before placing her short bow and quiver on her back, ensuring they were secure. I need to provide for my children. They’re all that matters to me, and I don't know what else to do.
Donning her balaclava, she stepped onto the windowsill. She took one last look at her children fast asleep, then leapt through the window, ready to begin her journey. I have to do this for you two. I would do anything to make you happy.
Alivia approached the mage's keep, leery of any magical traps that might give her away. The manse looked abandoned, with broken windows, chipped paint, and a sagging iron gate. With any luck, it would be empty, making for an easy job.
Even with that hopeful thought, she was just as careful as if it were guarded by a dozen men. She crossed the lawn, sliding into a basement window where the bars looked gnawed off by some sort of monster.
The room was damp, with racks of wine bottles splintered on the floor, their contents long seeped into the cobblestone. Alivia carefully stepped over the broken glass and splinters, making her way to the only door. She checked the door for traps and found a simple conflagration weave. Clumsily, she disabled the trap and stepped into the hall.
Blue light flashed across the ceiling. "Crap," Alivia muttered under her breath as she readied her bow. She wouldn't have missed the enchantment if she hadn't been so rusty. It was layered under the first weave, something only a novice would overlook. But she was no novice and had no excuse for the mistake. She slowly made her way down the only path, ever more careful now that her presence was known.
She came to an ornate door, symbols she couldn't recognize etched along the frame. A thorough check showed no traps. She stepped through, arrow nocked and ready.
An old man sat in front of a fireplace, the Tome of Flame resting on his lap. "So you're the mighty mage that lives in this pile of crap you call a home," Alivia said, sarcasm dripping from her lips as she stepped through the doorway, her arrow pointing at Rothgar. "I’ve come for the Tome of Flame. Just hand it over unless you want the last thing you taste to be my arrow."
Rothgar soaked in the heat from the fireplace, red mist swirling in his eyes. This was his sanctuary, and he would not tolerate intruders. Rage burned within as Rothgar spoke firmly, “You will never leave here alive. You have disgraced my wife's memory by entering this place!”
As the words passed over his lips, Alivia loosed her arrow and dropped the bow to draw her daggers. Her aim was true, but she had learned never to underestimate a mage.
The arrow flew straight for Rothgar’s head. He raised his hand and shot forth a ball of flame, disintegrating the arrow mid-flight. “You call that an attack? A kitten would put up a better fight.” Laughter echoed through each word to taunt her.
Before he could say anything else, Alivia was already on him, one dagger slashing towards his throat, the other stabbing at his ribs. Rothgar dodged the attack and threw out a quick wave of heat to distance himself from his attacker. Once distanced, he took in more heat and threw another fireball.
Alivia barely escaped behind a table as the fireball exploded on the wall behind her, throwing hot stone everywhere. She was going to have to be more careful not to underestimate the mage's speed and agility. That last mistake had almost cost her life.
She rolled from the table to a pillar, subtly throwing one of her daggers mid-roll. The table burst into flames as she eluded another of Rothgar’s fireballs.
Rothgar barely sidestepped the dagger as it flew past, cutting a shallow gash into his shoulder. Blood dripped from the wound. “Much better. You actually drew blood with that attack. This might actually be a decent fight after all.”
But even as he spoke those words, his eyes glazed over from the poison coursing through his veins. He fell to one knee and then toppled over onto his side. Alivia slowly approached the dying man, wary of a last desperate attack.
“I’ll be taking your tome now. Apparently, I need to have a conversation with my buyer. This was supposed to be a simple snatch and grab,” Alivia said coldly. She never wanted anyone to get hurt, but she had to do what needed to be done. Besides, her heart was long dead to the guilt of murder.
As she bent down to take the tome, Rothgar stared at her with a look of relief. With his last dying breath and a twinkle in his eye, he spoke. “I was too much of a coward to take my own life. Oh, how I have missed my dear Elizabeth. Thanks to you, I can finally see her again.” With those last words, he faded from this world, his soul finally free.
2024.05.18 18:44 LordIlthari The Dragon Princess and the Barbarian's Heart Chapter 1: The Scythian Queen
The first rays of rosy-fingered dawn climbed their way over the Macedonian hills and fell like arrows to glint upon the racing bronze of the Scythian raiders. Death clattered and rang among the early morning light as they made their way across the plateau towards the waking village. Gleaming in the rosy light, but obscured by the mist, they seemed like comets cast as Olympian arrows. Their horses' breath clung in the air as they dragged behind them chariots of bronze and chariots of iron. Each carried two men. Those with bronze carried a driver and an archer with bow bent, while those with iron carried a man with a mighty cleaving axe. Each driver also carried for himself a leather shield and bronze short sword. Behind the chariots came footmen equipped like the drivers, and at their flanks rode horsemen carrying one-handed axes, javelins, and wooden shields covered with leather. Thus the horde came down the valley towards the village, cloaked in the fog, but vastly beyond what their victims could hope to muster.
Then, the fog parted like the curtain of a theater. Before the coming horde stood arrayed a sturdy phalanx, a wall of bronze shields and forest of spears aimed towards the invaders. Behind them, men stood with bows bent and arrows knocked. At their center, a man sat astride a white-faced bay mare. Shining in his steel armor, he drew his bow and fired. An arrow sped into the eye of the foremost driver, and a moment later another caught his axeman in the throat. He roared with a voice like a trumpet. “MEN OF MACEDON, SET YOUR HEARTS ABLAZE!” Thus cried Leonidas Kygniois, keen eyed hunter, and with one voice his men answered him. “WOE! WOE! WOE TO THE WICKED!” At those a volley of arrows was loosed from behind the phalanx and fell among the Scythians. Many died, as Leon bid his aide unfurl the banners. Across the field each unit raised up two banners. Below was the banner of the unit, and above the sun with sixteen rays. Besides Leonidas arose his own banner, the white wolf on the blue field, under the black dragon’s wing.
The foremost forces of the Scythians were caught in the charge, unable to pull away. They crashed into the wall of shield and spear with the terrible sound of breaking bones, shearing bronze, dying horses and dying men. All the while arrows continued to rain, and the slaughter was brutal. But then, swift as a winding river, the Scythians turned and wheeled away. The chariots of bronze sent forth arrows of their own, coated in serpent’s venom. The phalanx raised their shields, and covered themselves. Even so some struck through, and the venom wrought a terrible toll on the men. Even so, the phalanx began to march forwards, stepping over the dead with their grim chant. “WOE! WOE! WOE TO THE WICKED”. With this chant they kept their stride, and advanced as a seamless wall. The wounded fell back, helped by their brothers. The archers helped guide them back, and reservists stepped forwards to replace them. Thus the army advanced.
The Scythians pulled back, and danced at the range of the archers. They sought a weakness, or to create a weakness. The bronze chariots formed into a circle and spun like a wheel. Each man turned and fired, and slipped out of range. It was troublesome to target and gave each Scythian plenty of time to line up his shot. In their midst was one most terrible, their chief in gilded chariot. Shining was their armor, brilliant as the sun, head hidden behind a helm like a lion. Their bow was strong and eye keen. Whenever they loosed, a Hellene fell dead.
At the same time, the chariots of iron gathered on the left, and with them the horsemen of the left. The army of the Hellenes had deployed on the flat ground before the village, with a forest on their right to guard that flank. For a flanked phalanx was a doomed phalanx, and the flat ground was optimal both for maintaining a unified line, but also for the chariots and horsemen to maneuver. So the scythians gathered on the left, and sought to envelop the Hellenes there. Their chief suspected their enemy might have hidden horsemen in the mists, and so the wheel turned. They drew forth arrows set with whistles and fired them into the flank. The arrows screamed with a terrible sound to spook horses and sunder morale. Then forwards the flanking force drove to envelop the foe, or else slip behind them to wreak ruin among the archers.
There they found the strongest of the Hellenes. Beneath a banner showing serpent-haired Medusa, they stood clad head to toe in steel. No arrow could find purchase against these immortals, and no blade of bronze could wound them. They turned with grim purpose, spears tracking the foe as the mist lifted. The flanking scythians found themselves with no cover, facing no exposed flank, but the royal elite of the Macedonian army.
Then out from their midst stepped a dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes. She pulled back her cowl to reveal a diadem, and opened her thumb on a bladed ring. She reached into her cloak and drew forth iron shavings, a magnetic stone, and rose thorns. Then she spoke words of power and imposed her sovereignty over reality.
“Apaangan
Loha
Kaante”
Then she blew the iron over the field. From the bones of the earth, iron answered. It erupted like a field of nails under the feet of the horses. They screamed in pain and stumbled. They fell and cast their riders on the thorns, or else were slowed in their stride. Thus the charge was stalled and the pace ruined. Then spoke the witch again and the air stank of ozone.
“Trisula.
Munhatod
Bijalee chamakana.”
By these words she called forth lightning. It came as a brilliant trident to her bloodied hand. Her hair came alight into the air with static, her diadem gleamed in its light. The enemy saw her and beheld the dread heir of Olympus, last and mightiest of the demigods, Queen Cassandra of the Macedonians. She hurled forth her trident into the air. There it broke and a storm cloud formed over the battle. The fury of Heaven rained down on the chariots of the Scythians. Their chariots of iron were brought to ruin. Their men fell bloodied, deafened, and burned. So Cassandra brought ruin to her enemies.
Thus, the enemy retreated from the hellene lines, and fled from the wrath of Cassandra, daughter of Zeus. For her fury was terrible, and her deeds were mighty. Thus they came back around their chief, and escaped the ruin that had come upon them. They withdrew, step by step, and runners were sent further back to the baggage train to make ready. On the Hellenes came against them, but they were slow in step and cautious. Leon watched the canny chief of the Scythians, and never did his eye wander. The chief in turn watched him, and both put hand to bow, though they did not loose at one another. The range was wrong, but each made ready for their duel.
At length, the Hellenes pushed the Scythians back beyond the extent of the forest, and so their left became exposed. Their chief launched a probing attack with their horsemen, who drew near and threw their javelins into the midst of the Hellene line. The line recoiled, pulling back and inwards, bunching up. At this sign of weakness, at once the chieftain struck. The chariots closed in for the kill. Likewise, the horsemen circled and lowered their spears. As one they would drive into the exposed flank of the Hellenes and drive them from the field.
Then the forest vanished. It had not all been an illusion of it, but enough of it. The chieftain turned, the world seemingly slowing to a crawl. Out of the fading shadow ran bold men armed with long spears. They crashed into the flank of the charging horde and into the midst of the chariots. They drove their spears into the wheels of the chariots, and ground them to a stop. They thrust upwards at the horsemen, who’s mounts reared away from the danger. The charge had been utterly disorganized by this sudden surprise attack, and the advantage was to the Hellenes.
Valiantly the Scythians fought, and most valiant was their chieftain. They lashed about themselves with axes and swords. Their chieftain hefted high a mighty flax; a reverse-edged blade held in two hands. Down the falx fell, and a Hellene that drew too near was all but split in two. The surprise was sudden, but for their charge the Hellenes had forsaken shield and heavy armor. As surprise faded, the battle seemed to shift in favor of the Scythians. Yet the chieftain lifted up their eyes, and saw that they were in danger. The Hellene cavalry finally made its move. Slipping in behind and around the bulk of the Scythian force, with Leonidas at their head, they made to encircle and destroy the Scythian mobile element.
Then the tide truly turned against the Scythians, as a roar sounded out of the mist. A shadowy blur, nearly the size of an elephant, was among them. It snatched the wounded out of the jaws of death, and threw aside chariot and horse with ease. Axes struck at it, and bounced. Spears thrust and were broken. A few bold horsemen charged towards the black mass in the mist, then she raised up her head. Great wings split the mists aside, and her majesty froze horse and rider alike in terror.
Her body was like that of a panther or other great cat, covered in interlocking scales like a serpent. Her four limbs were long and powerful, ending in mighty claws gleaming white as ivory. A tail like a scorpion lashed, a glaive-headed blade at its tip, sharp enough to split a man in twain, swifter than arrows. A long neck terminated in a head a bit like a horse, a bit like a viper, and a bit like a bird of prey. Plated black scales overlapped across her body, gleaming in the dawnlight, sturdier than steel, yet flowing like water. Blue fire lapped around the edges of a mouth full of teeth like daggers. Two great wings eclpsed heaven behind her, leathery like a bat. Long white scars from battles past covered her throat, as eyes like amber froze men like trapped bugs.
Seramis of Achaea, the Dragon Princess, entered the battlefield.
The chieftain saw this doom amongst their men, but watched with wisdom. Though Seramis wielded terror as her weapon, roaring with flame and talons drawn, she wielded only terror. She might have slain many easily, but she used the Gehennan flames as only a firewall. Her tail lashed and claws struck, but they slapped rather than slashing. The dragoness certainly broke bones, but that was more a function of mass than malice. Her priority was the wounded, and she struck those that got in her way.
“Avoid the dragon! Do not strike the wounded, nor stand to capture them! Slay them in a single blow, or wound them and move away before the dragon intervenes!” The chieftain cried, and while the Hellenes could not understand her, Seramis did. The Diluvian princess turned her head and looked toward the lion-helmed Scythian. The pair shared a look of understanding, before the tumult of battle resumed their attention.
Seramis continued her work, all the easier for the lack of interference. Acting as both medic and ambulance, she rescued the wounded, Hellene and Scythian alike. Following in her shadow came a creature a bit like a ram, with seven horns of lapis lazuli. This was her familiar, a spirit of knowledge she called Elijah. He acted as her diagnosticator, identifying wounds and ailments to aid her work. Sera cast spells of healing, not complex work but quick and efficient. Bleeding stalled, bones were set, and pain was soothed. Then she would take the wounded and lash them to her side and back with tendrils of shadow. Once she had gathered a full load of men, she retreated back behind the Hellene lines. There she deposited them with the healers, and leapt forth to rescue yet more.
With the dragoness identified as less a threat, and more a mobile hazard, the Scythians returned their focus to the Hellene cavalry. Their own cavalry had been Leon’s primary target during the initial confusion of the charge, and he had made good use of the opportunity. Many a Scythian horseman had been slain in those first few moments, and no less than thirteen by the prince of marathon’s own hand. The white-feathered shafts of his steel-tipped arrows were seen planted in throat, eye, and heart, a testament to the prince’s deadly aim and fearsome bow. For he was wolf to ringbearers, and the strength of his bow and the superior metal of his arrows pierced breastplates of bronze, even the scale mail of the Scythians.
Even so, while the Hellenes had bled the Scythian horse fiercely, they had less success against the charioteers. The chariots provided additional cover from Hellene javelins, and space to evade their lances. Moreover, their sturdy construction made them perilous to the Hellenes horses, as a swinging wheel could easily break a leg. Finally, the simple fact that each chariot was a two-man team allowed for greater resilience. One man focused on driving, and the other on fighting. If either was wounded so they could not do their work as well, they could switch. Even if the driver was outright killed, the other could take over and use the mass of the chariot as a weapon. So, though the play gave the Hellenes the advantage, the Scythians were far from out of the fight.
So, with fury, their chieftain rallied their men about them and led a fierce counterattack. With the superior durability of the chariots and their mighty chief at their head, the Scythians reaped a bloody retaliation on their foes. Leonidas ordered his men back, to gather themselves anew. Each side had been bloodied, and both sought a retreat. Then with a cry, he took his personal guard back in, aimed directly at the enemy general. His bow was drawn, and fired.
The Scythian general stepped to the side of their chariot, dodging the shot. They drew their own bow, aimed, and fired. Leon evaded, but he wasn’t the target. Instead, his horse was. The white-faced bay mare took the Scythian’s arrow in her flank. The wound was minor, but the poison was not. She ran on seven steps, then seized, and fell down dead. Leon leapt from his dying steed, and landed in a roll. He came up with shield and spear at the ready, as the Scythian chief turned their chariot towards him.
The two general’s bodyguards whirled in a melee as the Scythian and Hellene commanders faced each other in single combat. The Scythian forsook their bow, knowing their poisoned arrows could not pierce the prince’s steel armor. Instead they raised high their fell falx, as their chariot closed in. Leon readied himself as the chariot closed to trample him. Then, at the last moment he sprang aside, unusually agile despite his heavy armor. Still, the lion helm tracked him, and down the falx came. Leonidas raised his shield and set his feet. The shield was steel, and sturdy enough to shatter a blade of bronze such as the falx falling upon him. But it struck true, and carved the steel shield, then kept going. Leon pulled back, but he’d braced himself and couldn’t maneuver. His steel armor parted, and he came away with a serious gash in his arm. He felt the blade hit bone, and realized that if he hadn’t been so well equipped, that blade would have taken his left arm off, cutting straight through the bone.
Still, though he bled, he did not quail. He threw aside his ruined shield and took his spear in both hands. While his foe had the mass and momentum of a charging chariot, the physics of metallurgy dictated that their blade should have broken against him. Curved blades were more fragile, a trade-off for their superior cutting power, and a bronze blade should have no chance against steel. If physics were being violated, it meant sorcery was at play. The enemy’s blade was enchanted.
Again came the chieftain with their blessed blade. Their horses panted heavily in the air, adding to the rattle of the chariot. Chaos swirled around them, but Leon silenced it. The world reduced to simply himself, his enemy, and the vanishing space between. He set his target, and waited for the space to entirely vanish. The beat of the horse’s hooves were set like a metronome. Then, at the precise beat, he shattered the rhythm. He drove his spear forwards into the knee of the Scythian horse. The spear’s wooden haft shattered from the force, but so did the stallion’s leg. It collapsed in a bloody heap, tangling its partner. The chariot crashed into its steeds, slaying both brutally. The chieftain and their driver were staggered, but grasped hold of the chariot and were not thrown.
Leonidas took fourteen calculated steps, moving around the wreck of the chariot, then stepping aboard. In a single motion he drew his blade and cut upwards. The driver fell back as a spray of blood erupted from his throat. He slumped over the front of the chariot, blood flowing to mingle with the horses. Leon whirled on the chieftain as a shout of rage came to their lips. He stepped in close, too close for his foe to swing their great blade effectively. Here, his short blade had the advantage, and the chariot cornered his target. He drew the blade back to his hip like he was knife-fighting, and thrust upwards towards the foe’s beast. The scaled armor of the Scythians was legendarily hard to slash through, but the overlapping scales that caused such strength were vulnerable to this exact kind of upwards thrust. But his canny foe knew the armor’s weaknesses just as well, and pivoted with agility to rival the warrior prince.
They slashed with their great falx, but the range was awkward, so Leon evaded. He then pivoted, taking his blade in both hands. Gritting through the pain of his wounded arm, he wheeled with a mighty blow. He put his back, legs, and both arms into a murderous strike too quick to evade. The Scythian chief recognized it, and ducked their head. Rather than suffering a decapitating blow, they took the hit on the crown of their helm. The gold gilding it deformed and parted, but this was by design. By using a coating of deformable gold above the bronze, the helmet could better absorb slashing attacks. The gold twisted as it was cut, catching the blade and altering the edge alignment. Leon cut though, but rather than burying his sword midway into his target’s skull, he cut apart the helm and left a relatively shallow wound along his foe’s scalp, running down their forehead and across their face. The lion helm split, and fell away. Leon looked the enemy general in the eye for the first time, and hesitated.
The helm fell away, and out spilled long, golden hair, now matted in places by blood. A fair face, with piercing blue eyes looked up at him. A warrior’s snarl covered her face, as the Scythian Queen recovered. She snapped up and slammed the hilt of her falx into Leon’s eye. The prince staggered back, blinking to recover, as she took a step back in turn. With this, she obtained her range, and cut down with her falx. Leon raised his sword to block, but the reverse curve of the unusual weapon made it difficult. His wound caused his arm to spasm, and the curve came around the sword. The enchanted blade bit ito the common one, then cast it away. Leon’s wrist was wounded in the exchange, and blood began to fill his gauntlet.
Leon realized his peril, and stepped in swiftly. He caught his foot behind hers, and pulled back as he slammed his shoulder into her. The queen fell back, but caught herself on the edge of her chariot so she did not fall. Leon pressed in, pinning her arm with his his hand so she could not swing. He drew his hunting knife, and it was at her throat in a moment. His grip was unsteady, as his wrist was wounded, and he felt an utter brute to have a knife at a woman’s throat. “Yield. I do not wish to harm you.” He ordered, uncertain if she could even understand.
The Scythian Queen laughed in his face. “You do not wish to harm me?” She asked through a thick accent. “Then you should never have come to the battlefield! Know that I am Tamur, Queen of the Scythians, no soft flower of the south that you might bruise with your breath. I am here to that I might crush my enemies, drive them before me, hear the lamentations of your pathetic women, and reap from your ruin the prosperity of my people. Slay me now you coward, or else you must yield, for I will slay you without mercy.” Clear and clarion was her voice, as Athena upon the battlefield or Artemis on the hunt. She feared neither death nor injury, and laughed in spite of the carnage all about them.
Leon held his ground and was not moved by her laughter or insult. “Hear me then, oh Queen of the Scythians. What is greater cowardice? To be slain for principle, or to breach principle for fear of being slain? You are a mighty warrior; this I cannot deny. But this is my principle, that no man is any man that slays a woman, even if she is a warrior. I bid you now yield, that we might bring peace between our people and an end to this meaningless conflict you have brought about.” He spoke with all respect due to a fellow warrior, and with the resolve of his own indestructible soul.
“Far be it from meaningless, warrior of the Hellenes. Would you not do anything, even go beyond the bounds of the earth for your people? Hear now my principle, that my people shall conquer that we might not be conquered. For you who are blessed with so much shall not offer a pittance to our meager tents. So we shall take, for this is the nature of things, that the prosperity of one must always be at the expense of another. This is the balance of the world, and it belongs to he who carries the sword.”
Then she snapped her head forward, and impacted with Leon’s helm. Headbutting a steel helmet with your bare, already wounded head is generally not a good idea. But she was braced, and he was not. The maneuver would have opened her throat, but Leon had held back his knife for his soul rebuked him to harm a woman. Needless to say this principle, while generally noble, was extremely foolish in this instance. Chivalry was certainly not on Tamur’s mind as she pushed him back, and kicked him in the balls.
Leon was wearing armor and greaves, but about his waist was more of a plated skirt than a codpiece. The introduction of a bronze boot to that region inflicted less damage than it might, but this was in the sense that his family line could continue, rather than full nullification. He staggered further back, agility shattered. Tamur lashed out with her falx, and Leon wisely rolled away.
Leonidas began pushing himself back to his feet, but a Scythian archer circled. Whether by skill or by luck, they let fly their arrow and it struck true into the gash their queen had torn in the prince’s armor. Leon gasped briefly in pain as the arrow hit under his shoulder plate and pierced the meat of his back. It went through to the rib, and cracked it. He felt his blood already burning as the poisoned arrow delivered its deadly payload into his veins. The meat of muscle across his back began to scream and spasm, dropping him back to the earth. He saw Tamur approaching, and grit his teeth to rise through the pain. He was too slow, the falx came up…
Then there was a rush of wind, a smell of sulfur, and the sound of bronze ringing against talon, then scraping against scale. Seramis had intervened. She swooped in, and her talon met the falling flax. The two mighty women’s blades rang against one another, then Tamur shifted the blade. She cut across the dragoness’s palm and wounded her, drawing blood as the enchanted weapon carved scale. Seramis retaliated by coiling her tail, then striking forth with it like a whip. The foot and a half long blade at the end of the tail met the barbarian queen’s guard, and drove her back. The blade of the falx shook and sang like a tuning fork.
Seramis lowered her head, and spoke with a voice tinged with fire. She spoke in the Scythian’s own language, a growl deep in her throat and fire on her tongue. “Have you not heard, queen of the Scythians, that one should not trifle with a dragon’s hoard? If not, then I will educate you. Come not between a daughter of Tiamat and her treasure. This is folly, and will be your ruin should you persist.”
Tamur heard the words of the dragoness, and looked once to the blood on her sword, and once to the flames in the maw before her. She saw the damage the hellenes had wrought on her vanguard, and the advance of their phalanx. She stepped back, and ordered a retreat. Scythian and Diluvian locked eyes as the queen boarded a new chariot, and swiftly they retreated from the battlefield.
Sera breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly turned to her prince. Leon had kept trying to get up, and managed to stagger to his feet. Gently, she took him in an unwounded claw, and bore him away. “Leon, please tell me you can hear me.”
“I can. Ow.” Leon replied, breathing slowly, and deeply, to keep his face and voice from twisting in pain. “What did you say to her?”
“Just a bit of theater to make her leave, don’t worry about it. You focus on not dying, oh chivalrous fool mine.”
“Hah. Tease me when I’m not dying, would you kindly? It hurts too much to laugh.”
“Maybe next time, don’t be such an idiot then.”
“Ah, but then how would you have an excuse to rescue me?”
“Please, we both know I don’t need an excuse to steal you away. I’ve done it before.” Sera teased, and Leon smiled through the pain.
Even as two of the trio of royals retreated, Cassandra remained. She saw the Scythians trying to quit the field, and that the ambush had not been successful enough. They had mauled the Scythian mobile element, but not utterly broken it. She sent an order for caution, for if they overpursued the wily Scythian general, she might turn and crush them in turn. Still, she would not allow her enemy to escape her wrath so easily. She cast again, and thunder boomed across the clear morning.
“Avataar”
“Poorvaj”
“Rosh”
The mists of early morning fled from the Hellenes, and ran down the Scythians. The retreating barbarians turned, and saw the mists gather together into a humanoid figure. Long curls of smoke came down from a scowling face, almost akin to hair. Winds howled like limbs to throw men from horse and chariot. Tamur quickly evaded as the growing titan of mist swung, clear blue eyes gleaming amongst the artificial cloud. Then the avatar drew back its hand, and lighting crackled into being. The heir of Olympus and last daughter of Zeus hurled down lighting bolts at the Scythians, reminding all why even with the thrones of Olympus long empty and ashen, they were still remembered in myth and legend.
Bolts of lightning mauled man and horse alike. Chariots fell away twisted and burning. Thunder terrified men and horses. Cassandra watched from the eyes of her avatar as she delivered the wrath of an angry god upon then. “I am the dread Queen of Macedon. I am the miracle of destruction. I am mankind’s answer to dragons, and you dare, YOU DARE! Come to my home, my kingdom, and hurt my people, and now you think you can simply run away?” The whisper grew to a roaring fury, bolts of lightning leaping from her eyes to slay yet more.
Then Tamur cried a loud challenge, and bid her driver turn the chariot. She charged at the avatar of mist and storm, raising her blade high. In rage, Cassandra cast down another bolt of lightning, but Tamur raised up her sword. The bolt caught the bronze blade, but did not rip down through into the queen. Instead, she turned and set herself, then cut the air. Lighting ripped back into the avatar, and cut it from crown to groin. There was a clap of thunder, and the avatar was banished.
Cassandra went flying back, caught by her men, but left dazed. A wound, thankfully shallow, had sprung from no apparent source, from her crown down the center of her body, even under her armor. She staggered upright, hands shaking violently. She reached for magic, but it was like a man who was concussed. It was there, but unstable, difficult to control, unreliable. The clean, efficient control she prided herself on eluded her. She drew in a breath, and clenched her fists to stop her shaking hand. Showing no pain from her wound, she watched as the scythians slipped out of her grasp.
“Where in the world did she get a sword that can cut the soul?” Cassandra wondered aloud. Then, heeding the insistence of her men, she retreated, and ordered the army to retire from the field. She growled as she made her way back towards the medical tents. “I hate dealing with other miracles.”
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Then, the fog parted like the curtain of a theater. Before the coming horde stood arrayed a sturdy phalanx, a wall of bronze shields and forest of spears aimed towards the invaders. Behind them, men stood with bows bent and arrows knocked. At their center, a man sat astride a white-faced bay mare. Shining in his steel armor, he drew his bow and fired. An arrow sped into the eye of the foremost driver, and a moment later another caught his axeman in the throat. He roared with a voice like a trumpet. “MEN OF MACEDON, SET YOUR HEARTS ABLAZE!” Thus cried Leonidas Kygniois, keen eyed hunter, and with one voice his men answered him. “WOE! WOE! WOE TO THE WICKED!” At those a volley of arrows was loosed from behind the phalanx and fell among the Scythians. Many died, as Leon bid his aide unfurl the banners. Across the field each unit raised up two banners. Below was the banner of the unit, and above the sun with sixteen rays. Besides Leonidas arose his own banner, the white wolf on the blue field, under the black dragon’s wing.
The foremost forces of the Scythians were caught in the charge, unable to pull away. They crashed into the wall of shield and spear with the terrible sound of breaking bones, shearing bronze, dying horses and dying men. All the while arrows continued to rain, and the slaughter was brutal. But then, swift as a winding river, the Scythians turned and wheeled away. The chariots of bronze sent forth arrows of their own, coated in serpent’s venom. The phalanx raised their shields, and covered themselves. Even so some struck through, and the venom wrought a terrible toll on the men. Even so, the phalanx began to march forwards, stepping over the dead with their grim chant. “WOE! WOE! WOE TO THE WICKED”. With this chant they kept their stride, and advanced as a seamless wall. The wounded fell back, helped by their brothers. The archers helped guide them back, and reservists stepped forwards to replace them. Thus the army advanced.
The Scythians pulled back, and danced at the range of the archers. They sought a weakness, or to create a weakness. The bronze chariots formed into a circle and spun like a wheel. Each man turned and fired, and slipped out of range. It was troublesome to target and gave each Scythian plenty of time to line up his shot. In their midst was one most terrible, their chief in gilded chariot. Shining was their armor, brilliant as the sun, head hidden behind a helm like a lion. Their bow was strong and eye keen. Whenever they loosed, a Hellene fell dead.
At the same time, the chariots of iron gathered on the left, and with them the horsemen of the left. The army of the Hellenes had deployed on the flat ground before the village, with a forest on their right to guard that flank. For a flanked phalanx was a doomed phalanx, and the flat ground was optimal both for maintaining a unified line, but also for the chariots and horsemen to maneuver. So the scythians gathered on the left, and sought to envelop the Hellenes there. Their chief suspected their enemy might have hidden horsemen in the mists, and so the wheel turned. They drew forth arrows set with whistles and fired them into the flank. The arrows screamed with a terrible sound to spook horses and sunder morale. Then forwards the flanking force drove to envelop the foe, or else slip behind them to wreak ruin among the archers.
There they found the strongest of the Hellenes. Beneath a banner showing serpent-haired Medusa, they stood clad head to toe in steel. No arrow could find purchase against these immortals, and no blade of bronze could wound them. They turned with grim purpose, spears tracking the foe as the mist lifted. The flanking scythians found themselves with no cover, facing no exposed flank, but the royal elite of the Macedonian army.
Then out from their midst stepped a dark-haired woman with piercing blue eyes. She pulled back her cowl to reveal a diadem, and opened her thumb on a bladed ring. She reached into her cloak and drew forth iron shavings, a magnetic stone, and rose thorns. Then she spoke words of power and imposed her sovereignty over reality.
“Apaangan
Loha
Kaante”
Then she blew the iron over the field. From the bones of the earth, iron answered. It erupted like a field of nails under the feet of the horses. They screamed in pain and stumbled. They fell and cast their riders on the thorns, or else were slowed in their stride. Thus the charge was stalled and the pace ruined. Then spoke the witch again and the air stank of ozone.
“Trisula.
Munhatod
Bijalee chamakana.”
By these words she called forth lightning. It came as a brilliant trident to her bloodied hand. Her hair came alight into the air with static, her diadem gleamed in its light. The enemy saw her and beheld the dread heir of Olympus, last and mightiest of the demigods, Queen Cassandra of the Macedonians. She hurled forth her trident into the air. There it broke and a storm cloud formed over the battle. The fury of Heaven rained down on the chariots of the Scythians. Their chariots of iron were brought to ruin. Their men fell bloodied, deafened, and burned. So Cassandra brought ruin to her enemies.
Thus, the enemy retreated from the hellene lines, and fled from the wrath of Cassandra, daughter of Zeus. For her fury was terrible, and her deeds were mighty. Thus they came back around their chief, and escaped the ruin that had come upon them. They withdrew, step by step, and runners were sent further back to the baggage train to make ready. On the Hellenes came against them, but they were slow in step and cautious. Leon watched the canny chief of the Scythians, and never did his eye wander. The chief in turn watched him, and both put hand to bow, though they did not loose at one another. The range was wrong, but each made ready for their duel.
At length, the Hellenes pushed the Scythians back beyond the extent of the forest, and so their left became exposed. Their chief launched a probing attack with their horsemen, who drew near and threw their javelins into the midst of the Hellene line. The line recoiled, pulling back and inwards, bunching up. At this sign of weakness, at once the chieftain struck. The chariots closed in for the kill. Likewise, the horsemen circled and lowered their spears. As one they would drive into the exposed flank of the Hellenes and drive them from the field.
Then the forest vanished. It had not all been an illusion of it, but enough of it. The chieftain turned, the world seemingly slowing to a crawl. Out of the fading shadow ran bold men armed with long spears. They crashed into the flank of the charging horde and into the midst of the chariots. They drove their spears into the wheels of the chariots, and ground them to a stop. They thrust upwards at the horsemen, who’s mounts reared away from the danger. The charge had been utterly disorganized by this sudden surprise attack, and the advantage was to the Hellenes.
Valiantly the Scythians fought, and most valiant was their chieftain. They lashed about themselves with axes and swords. Their chieftain hefted high a mighty flax; a reverse-edged blade held in two hands. Down the falx fell, and a Hellene that drew too near was all but split in two. The surprise was sudden, but for their charge the Hellenes had forsaken shield and heavy armor. As surprise faded, the battle seemed to shift in favor of the Scythians. Yet the chieftain lifted up their eyes, and saw that they were in danger. The Hellene cavalry finally made its move. Slipping in behind and around the bulk of the Scythian force, with Leonidas at their head, they made to encircle and destroy the Scythian mobile element.
Then the tide truly turned against the Scythians, as a roar sounded out of the mist. A shadowy blur, nearly the size of an elephant, was among them. It snatched the wounded out of the jaws of death, and threw aside chariot and horse with ease. Axes struck at it, and bounced. Spears thrust and were broken. A few bold horsemen charged towards the black mass in the mist, then she raised up her head. Great wings split the mists aside, and her majesty froze horse and rider alike in terror.
Her body was like that of a panther or other great cat, covered in interlocking scales like a serpent. Her four limbs were long and powerful, ending in mighty claws gleaming white as ivory. A tail like a scorpion lashed, a glaive-headed blade at its tip, sharp enough to split a man in twain, swifter than arrows. A long neck terminated in a head a bit like a horse, a bit like a viper, and a bit like a bird of prey. Plated black scales overlapped across her body, gleaming in the dawnlight, sturdier than steel, yet flowing like water. Blue fire lapped around the edges of a mouth full of teeth like daggers. Two great wings eclpsed heaven behind her, leathery like a bat. Long white scars from battles past covered her throat, as eyes like amber froze men like trapped bugs.
Seramis of Achaea, the Dragon Princess, entered the battlefield.
The chieftain saw this doom amongst their men, but watched with wisdom. Though Seramis wielded terror as her weapon, roaring with flame and talons drawn, she wielded only terror. She might have slain many easily, but she used the Gehennan flames as only a firewall. Her tail lashed and claws struck, but they slapped rather than slashing. The dragoness certainly broke bones, but that was more a function of mass than malice. Her priority was the wounded, and she struck those that got in her way.
“Avoid the dragon! Do not strike the wounded, nor stand to capture them! Slay them in a single blow, or wound them and move away before the dragon intervenes!” The chieftain cried, and while the Hellenes could not understand her, Seramis did. The Diluvian princess turned her head and looked toward the lion-helmed Scythian. The pair shared a look of understanding, before the tumult of battle resumed their attention.
Seramis continued her work, all the easier for the lack of interference. Acting as both medic and ambulance, she rescued the wounded, Hellene and Scythian alike. Following in her shadow came a creature a bit like a ram, with seven horns of lapis lazuli. This was her familiar, a spirit of knowledge she called Elijah. He acted as her diagnosticator, identifying wounds and ailments to aid her work. Sera cast spells of healing, not complex work but quick and efficient. Bleeding stalled, bones were set, and pain was soothed. Then she would take the wounded and lash them to her side and back with tendrils of shadow. Once she had gathered a full load of men, she retreated back behind the Hellene lines. There she deposited them with the healers, and leapt forth to rescue yet more.
With the dragoness identified as less a threat, and more a mobile hazard, the Scythians returned their focus to the Hellene cavalry. Their own cavalry had been Leon’s primary target during the initial confusion of the charge, and he had made good use of the opportunity. Many a Scythian horseman had been slain in those first few moments, and no less than thirteen by the prince of marathon’s own hand. The white-feathered shafts of his steel-tipped arrows were seen planted in throat, eye, and heart, a testament to the prince’s deadly aim and fearsome bow. For he was wolf to ringbearers, and the strength of his bow and the superior metal of his arrows pierced breastplates of bronze, even the scale mail of the Scythians.
Even so, while the Hellenes had bled the Scythian horse fiercely, they had less success against the charioteers. The chariots provided additional cover from Hellene javelins, and space to evade their lances. Moreover, their sturdy construction made them perilous to the Hellenes horses, as a swinging wheel could easily break a leg. Finally, the simple fact that each chariot was a two-man team allowed for greater resilience. One man focused on driving, and the other on fighting. If either was wounded so they could not do their work as well, they could switch. Even if the driver was outright killed, the other could take over and use the mass of the chariot as a weapon. So, though the play gave the Hellenes the advantage, the Scythians were far from out of the fight.
So, with fury, their chieftain rallied their men about them and led a fierce counterattack. With the superior durability of the chariots and their mighty chief at their head, the Scythians reaped a bloody retaliation on their foes. Leonidas ordered his men back, to gather themselves anew. Each side had been bloodied, and both sought a retreat. Then with a cry, he took his personal guard back in, aimed directly at the enemy general. His bow was drawn, and fired.
The Scythian general stepped to the side of their chariot, dodging the shot. They drew their own bow, aimed, and fired. Leon evaded, but he wasn’t the target. Instead, his horse was. The white-faced bay mare took the Scythian’s arrow in her flank. The wound was minor, but the poison was not. She ran on seven steps, then seized, and fell down dead. Leon leapt from his dying steed, and landed in a roll. He came up with shield and spear at the ready, as the Scythian chief turned their chariot towards him.
The two general’s bodyguards whirled in a melee as the Scythian and Hellene commanders faced each other in single combat. The Scythian forsook their bow, knowing their poisoned arrows could not pierce the prince’s steel armor. Instead they raised high their fell falx, as their chariot closed in. Leon readied himself as the chariot closed to trample him. Then, at the last moment he sprang aside, unusually agile despite his heavy armor. Still, the lion helm tracked him, and down the falx came. Leonidas raised his shield and set his feet. The shield was steel, and sturdy enough to shatter a blade of bronze such as the falx falling upon him. But it struck true, and carved the steel shield, then kept going. Leon pulled back, but he’d braced himself and couldn’t maneuver. His steel armor parted, and he came away with a serious gash in his arm. He felt the blade hit bone, and realized that if he hadn’t been so well equipped, that blade would have taken his left arm off, cutting straight through the bone.
Still, though he bled, he did not quail. He threw aside his ruined shield and took his spear in both hands. While his foe had the mass and momentum of a charging chariot, the physics of metallurgy dictated that their blade should have broken against him. Curved blades were more fragile, a trade-off for their superior cutting power, and a bronze blade should have no chance against steel. If physics were being violated, it meant sorcery was at play. The enemy’s blade was enchanted.
Again came the chieftain with their blessed blade. Their horses panted heavily in the air, adding to the rattle of the chariot. Chaos swirled around them, but Leon silenced it. The world reduced to simply himself, his enemy, and the vanishing space between. He set his target, and waited for the space to entirely vanish. The beat of the horse’s hooves were set like a metronome. Then, at the precise beat, he shattered the rhythm. He drove his spear forwards into the knee of the Scythian horse. The spear’s wooden haft shattered from the force, but so did the stallion’s leg. It collapsed in a bloody heap, tangling its partner. The chariot crashed into its steeds, slaying both brutally. The chieftain and their driver were staggered, but grasped hold of the chariot and were not thrown.
Leonidas took fourteen calculated steps, moving around the wreck of the chariot, then stepping aboard. In a single motion he drew his blade and cut upwards. The driver fell back as a spray of blood erupted from his throat. He slumped over the front of the chariot, blood flowing to mingle with the horses. Leon whirled on the chieftain as a shout of rage came to their lips. He stepped in close, too close for his foe to swing their great blade effectively. Here, his short blade had the advantage, and the chariot cornered his target. He drew the blade back to his hip like he was knife-fighting, and thrust upwards towards the foe’s beast. The scaled armor of the Scythians was legendarily hard to slash through, but the overlapping scales that caused such strength were vulnerable to this exact kind of upwards thrust. But his canny foe knew the armor’s weaknesses just as well, and pivoted with agility to rival the warrior prince.
They slashed with their great falx, but the range was awkward, so Leon evaded. He then pivoted, taking his blade in both hands. Gritting through the pain of his wounded arm, he wheeled with a mighty blow. He put his back, legs, and both arms into a murderous strike too quick to evade. The Scythian chief recognized it, and ducked their head. Rather than suffering a decapitating blow, they took the hit on the crown of their helm. The gold gilding it deformed and parted, but this was by design. By using a coating of deformable gold above the bronze, the helmet could better absorb slashing attacks. The gold twisted as it was cut, catching the blade and altering the edge alignment. Leon cut though, but rather than burying his sword midway into his target’s skull, he cut apart the helm and left a relatively shallow wound along his foe’s scalp, running down their forehead and across their face. The lion helm split, and fell away. Leon looked the enemy general in the eye for the first time, and hesitated.
The helm fell away, and out spilled long, golden hair, now matted in places by blood. A fair face, with piercing blue eyes looked up at him. A warrior’s snarl covered her face, as the Scythian Queen recovered. She snapped up and slammed the hilt of her falx into Leon’s eye. The prince staggered back, blinking to recover, as she took a step back in turn. With this, she obtained her range, and cut down with her falx. Leon raised his sword to block, but the reverse curve of the unusual weapon made it difficult. His wound caused his arm to spasm, and the curve came around the sword. The enchanted blade bit ito the common one, then cast it away. Leon’s wrist was wounded in the exchange, and blood began to fill his gauntlet.
Leon realized his peril, and stepped in swiftly. He caught his foot behind hers, and pulled back as he slammed his shoulder into her. The queen fell back, but caught herself on the edge of her chariot so she did not fall. Leon pressed in, pinning her arm with his his hand so she could not swing. He drew his hunting knife, and it was at her throat in a moment. His grip was unsteady, as his wrist was wounded, and he felt an utter brute to have a knife at a woman’s throat. “Yield. I do not wish to harm you.” He ordered, uncertain if she could even understand.
The Scythian Queen laughed in his face. “You do not wish to harm me?” She asked through a thick accent. “Then you should never have come to the battlefield! Know that I am Tamur, Queen of the Scythians, no soft flower of the south that you might bruise with your breath. I am here to that I might crush my enemies, drive them before me, hear the lamentations of your pathetic women, and reap from your ruin the prosperity of my people. Slay me now you coward, or else you must yield, for I will slay you without mercy.” Clear and clarion was her voice, as Athena upon the battlefield or Artemis on the hunt. She feared neither death nor injury, and laughed in spite of the carnage all about them.
Leon held his ground and was not moved by her laughter or insult. “Hear me then, oh Queen of the Scythians. What is greater cowardice? To be slain for principle, or to breach principle for fear of being slain? You are a mighty warrior; this I cannot deny. But this is my principle, that no man is any man that slays a woman, even if she is a warrior. I bid you now yield, that we might bring peace between our people and an end to this meaningless conflict you have brought about.” He spoke with all respect due to a fellow warrior, and with the resolve of his own indestructible soul.
“Far be it from meaningless, warrior of the Hellenes. Would you not do anything, even go beyond the bounds of the earth for your people? Hear now my principle, that my people shall conquer that we might not be conquered. For you who are blessed with so much shall not offer a pittance to our meager tents. So we shall take, for this is the nature of things, that the prosperity of one must always be at the expense of another. This is the balance of the world, and it belongs to he who carries the sword.”
Then she snapped her head forward, and impacted with Leon’s helm. Headbutting a steel helmet with your bare, already wounded head is generally not a good idea. But she was braced, and he was not. The maneuver would have opened her throat, but Leon had held back his knife for his soul rebuked him to harm a woman. Needless to say this principle, while generally noble, was extremely foolish in this instance. Chivalry was certainly not on Tamur’s mind as she pushed him back, and kicked him in the balls.
Leon was wearing armor and greaves, but about his waist was more of a plated skirt than a codpiece. The introduction of a bronze boot to that region inflicted less damage than it might, but this was in the sense that his family line could continue, rather than full nullification. He staggered further back, agility shattered. Tamur lashed out with her falx, and Leon wisely rolled away.
Leonidas began pushing himself back to his feet, but a Scythian archer circled. Whether by skill or by luck, they let fly their arrow and it struck true into the gash their queen had torn in the prince’s armor. Leon gasped briefly in pain as the arrow hit under his shoulder plate and pierced the meat of his back. It went through to the rib, and cracked it. He felt his blood already burning as the poisoned arrow delivered its deadly payload into his veins. The meat of muscle across his back began to scream and spasm, dropping him back to the earth. He saw Tamur approaching, and grit his teeth to rise through the pain. He was too slow, the falx came up…
Then there was a rush of wind, a smell of sulfur, and the sound of bronze ringing against talon, then scraping against scale. Seramis had intervened. She swooped in, and her talon met the falling flax. The two mighty women’s blades rang against one another, then Tamur shifted the blade. She cut across the dragoness’s palm and wounded her, drawing blood as the enchanted weapon carved scale. Seramis retaliated by coiling her tail, then striking forth with it like a whip. The foot and a half long blade at the end of the tail met the barbarian queen’s guard, and drove her back. The blade of the falx shook and sang like a tuning fork.
Seramis lowered her head, and spoke with a voice tinged with fire. She spoke in the Scythian’s own language, a growl deep in her throat and fire on her tongue. “Have you not heard, queen of the Scythians, that one should not trifle with a dragon’s hoard? If not, then I will educate you. Come not between a daughter of Tiamat and her treasure. This is folly, and will be your ruin should you persist.”
Tamur heard the words of the dragoness, and looked once to the blood on her sword, and once to the flames in the maw before her. She saw the damage the hellenes had wrought on her vanguard, and the advance of their phalanx. She stepped back, and ordered a retreat. Scythian and Diluvian locked eyes as the queen boarded a new chariot, and swiftly they retreated from the battlefield.
Sera breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly turned to her prince. Leon had kept trying to get up, and managed to stagger to his feet. Gently, she took him in an unwounded claw, and bore him away. “Leon, please tell me you can hear me.”
“I can. Ow.” Leon replied, breathing slowly, and deeply, to keep his face and voice from twisting in pain. “What did you say to her?”
“Just a bit of theater to make her leave, don’t worry about it. You focus on not dying, oh chivalrous fool mine.”
“Hah. Tease me when I’m not dying, would you kindly? It hurts too much to laugh.”
“Maybe next time, don’t be such an idiot then.”
“Ah, but then how would you have an excuse to rescue me?”
“Please, we both know I don’t need an excuse to steal you away. I’ve done it before.” Sera teased, and Leon smiled through the pain.
Even as two of the trio of royals retreated, Cassandra remained. She saw the Scythians trying to quit the field, and that the ambush had not been successful enough. They had mauled the Scythian mobile element, but not utterly broken it. She sent an order for caution, for if they overpursued the wily Scythian general, she might turn and crush them in turn. Still, she would not allow her enemy to escape her wrath so easily. She cast again, and thunder boomed across the clear morning.
“Avataar”
“Poorvaj”
“Rosh”
The mists of early morning fled from the Hellenes, and ran down the Scythians. The retreating barbarians turned, and saw the mists gather together into a humanoid figure. Long curls of smoke came down from a scowling face, almost akin to hair. Winds howled like limbs to throw men from horse and chariot. Tamur quickly evaded as the growing titan of mist swung, clear blue eyes gleaming amongst the artificial cloud. Then the avatar drew back its hand, and lighting crackled into being. The heir of Olympus and last daughter of Zeus hurled down lighting bolts at the Scythians, reminding all why even with the thrones of Olympus long empty and ashen, they were still remembered in myth and legend.
Bolts of lightning mauled man and horse alike. Chariots fell away twisted and burning. Thunder terrified men and horses. Cassandra watched from the eyes of her avatar as she delivered the wrath of an angry god upon then. “I am the dread Queen of Macedon. I am the miracle of destruction. I am mankind’s answer to dragons, and you dare, YOU DARE! Come to my home, my kingdom, and hurt my people, and now you think you can simply run away?” The whisper grew to a roaring fury, bolts of lightning leaping from her eyes to slay yet more.
Then Tamur cried a loud challenge, and bid her driver turn the chariot. She charged at the avatar of mist and storm, raising her blade high. In rage, Cassandra cast down another bolt of lightning, but Tamur raised up her sword. The bolt caught the bronze blade, but did not rip down through into the queen. Instead, she turned and set herself, then cut the air. Lighting ripped back into the avatar, and cut it from crown to groin. There was a clap of thunder, and the avatar was banished.
Cassandra went flying back, caught by her men, but left dazed. A wound, thankfully shallow, had sprung from no apparent source, from her crown down the center of her body, even under her armor. She staggered upright, hands shaking violently. She reached for magic, but it was like a man who was concussed. It was there, but unstable, difficult to control, unreliable. The clean, efficient control she prided herself on eluded her. She drew in a breath, and clenched her fists to stop her shaking hand. Showing no pain from her wound, she watched as the scythians slipped out of her grasp.
“Where in the world did she get a sword that can cut the soul?” Cassandra wondered aloud. Then, heeding the insistence of her men, she retreated, and ordered the army to retire from the field. She growled as she made her way back towards the medical tents. “I hate dealing with other miracles.”
2024.05.18 18:10 ExecutiveVamp The Old Machine
The Old Machine
By Angel ArevaloThe first time I saw the old machine was as Benny’s father closed his study door to us. It was already a relic then, a heap of beige plastic from a bygone era. The monitor was a beige box with a screen made of thick glass. It must have weighed a ton. It sat odious on the rectangular beige case that contained its thinking guts. Peripherals included a keyboard, a mouse, and a phone.
The phone was not a flat screened supercomputer the way the phones of today are. It was a simple speaker and receiver, with a rotating dial instead of buttons. Technically it was capable of making calls from a connected landline, but this was not its true purpose. Its true purpose was to make communication between the internet and the old machine possible. It did this through the magic of sound. According to Benny, who heard it from his father, the data from the internet came in the form of audible sound. Once it was called, the phone could be placed on a stand from which the old machine could “hear” the signals and translate them back into binary code.
My imagination stirred at the idea of “hearing” the internet. I could put something tangible to the invisible force that allowed me to watch endless streams of videos, or chat with friends from around the world. Benny probably more than me. He lived with the damn thing. However it was off limits.
As much as we wanted to hear the internet, Benny’s father would not have it. His study was entirely forbidden to us, and on the few occasions when he had allowed us entry to give us a word of sage advice or to admonish us for childish antics, he would use himself as a physical barrier between us and the old machine. His physical language was such that neither Benny or I had ever thought to ask for permission. Neither of us believed he would even consider the idea, and the most likely outcome would be that he would make it all that much harder to do so behind his back.
So we waited. Bided our time. As children, this was all that was afforded to us.
This forced patience paid off.
There came a very unusual day in Benny’s house. Often it was Benny’s mother who was charged with the daily maintenance of the household, but outstanding circumstances meant that she was forced to take the day off. If I remember correctly it was to do with Benny’s grandmother, but that is neither here nor there. The important thing is that Benny’s father had to take over the daily run of the house. Part of that was buying the groceries for that night's dinner, so here was a rare moment where the house and the study would be left completely unattended.
The moment we heard his father’s car leave the driveway, we were on it.
The door to his father’s study, where the old machine was kept, was locked, but we accounted for this. Benny had been practicing opening the locks around his house, and they were all the same make and model. Benny stuck the finer end of a hairpin into the keyhole and opened the lock as quickly as if he had the key.
The door swung open, and perched on the desk, was the old machine, in all its pristine beige glory.
It was a comically frightful thing, that heap of beige plastic. It sat there, decades old at least, and yet the casing showed no sign of yellowing. The screen, which showed that it was turned off, was a yawning black abyss; and the deadly silence of the room was disturbed by something that was not quite tangible, but an almost physical mental pressure, like gentle psychic breathing. The pressure was such that you could feel it in the base of your skull, and much more lightly, around your head and in your ears. It made one feel as if they were in the presence of a great monster, and not, in fact, an old beige box of outdated electronics.
“C’mon,” said Benny, stepping into the room. Evidently I had been stuck in place for some time. Benny on the other hand seemed much less wary than me. He scampered forward, smiling as he pulled back his fathers study chair so he could stand on it and reach the strange phone with its rotating dial.
Not nearly as brave, and suddenly three times more cautious, I stood back as he picked up the phone to “listen” to the internet. Depending on how you view it, the phone was luckily, or rather “unluckily”, in its translation stand, meaning that it was at that time communicating with the internet. Benny’s face twisted uncomfortably before breaking into a giddy smile.
“Ooh!” he said, smiling. “That’s creepy!”
He held it to his ear like that for a minute or so, wrinkling his nose from time to time before smiling again and throwing me a conspiratorial smirk. His giddy enthusiasm, despite the sound being what he called “creepy” seemed to calm me down some. Benny always had a way of doing that to me. Suddenly I was excited. He saw this, and offered me his place on his father’s seat.
“Here,” he said, still smirking. “It’s terrible!”
I took his place on the seat, and picked up the phone. It was heavier than I expected. Heavier than any smart phone I had ever held. It was like picking up the lighter end of an animal’s meaty tail. I felt a sudden hesitation, but Benny was still brimming with joy, goading me to have a listen.
I put the phone to my ear, and heard whispers. Surprised, I let the phone slip out of my hands to clatter to the floor.
They had been quiet whispers, barely audible, but audible they were. The whispers painted a picture for me. A sticky red room. A friend, here but not here. I saw the old machine in a new home, and with a new keeper, a willing thrall.
I think Benny would have laughed at me if he had not also been struck stupid in that same moment. Standing in the doorway of his study was his father.
It is difficult to speak ill of the dead, which is funny, because it’s not like they care, but that’s just the way of things. Benny’s father had always been a kind man. If not a kind man then certainly a dutiful father. He was always there for Benny, always there to give a word of wisdom or a consoling hug, but on occasion there was a glint of something sinister behind his eyes. It appeared sporadically, mostly during conversations with other adults. Somewhere in the middle of a conversation between the tragic loss of a child in another state or several towns over, or in discussing the statistic and calculus of death such as a mass shooting, that furtive sparkle behind his eye would manifest, and he would become, for a fraction of a second, someone else. That spark was there now, and it was aimed at me.
Benny’s father saw that I had the phone in my hand. He saw his boy beside me, and that spark behind his eye turned into a barely controlled flame. There was so much hate there.
“Benjamin,” he said in a deathly calm voice, in a heavily restrained voice. “Please tell me you didn’t let your friend here talk you into picking up that phone.”
“He didn’t, dad, he didn’t,” answered Benny.
“Did you pick up the phone too?”
“Of course not dad,” Benny lied.
Relief washed over his father’s face. He ran past the threshold of the study and knelt down to wrap his arms around his boy. He then looked at me.
“Get out,” he said quietly, nearly on the verge of tears. Then again, louder, “GET OUT!”
I was still too stunned to move, even after the second shout, but then Benny’s father rose– with Benny still in his hands. The menace I felt. I bolted from the study, running past Benny and his father.
I learned from Benny at school the next day that we weren’t allowed to play together anymore. Benny’s father didn’t even want to see me anywhere near him. It was ridiculous. We were neighbors for crying out loud! Benny was my best friend, who else was I going to play with? And for what? But it didn’t matter. Benny’s father had made his decree, and Benny had to abide. At least we still had school. Benny’s father couldn’t dictate who he spoke to there.
Benny and I sulked for that whole school day, unable to enjoy the little time we were going to have together. We sulked like that together at school for ages. And in this way, the strange whispers that we heard in the phone were almost forgotten, overshadowed by our forced separation.
Every day after school I hoped and prayed that my exile from Benny’s home would end, and in a roundabout and terrible way, my prayers were answered.
A year later, Benny was pulled from class, after which he disappeared for a week. His home, which was next to mine, sat dark and empty. For a whole week I heard nothing from him, not any social platform or messaging medium. When I finally did hear from him, it was no longer Benny. It was the shell of a person that had once been a child. It was Benny, aged eons.
The broken shell that had been Benny stumbled into class. He said nothing, and looked at no one. It wasn’t until lunch period that I finally got anything out of him, and when I did, I don’t think I could ever have been ready to hear it.
That day that Benny had been pulled out of class was the day that his mother had been arrested for the murder of his father. She was found in his study, and according to police, was basically mid act. How the police were alerted so quickly as to show up with the crime in progress was never fully revealed to Benny personally, but news coverage afterwards revealed that an anonymous tip had arrived at the police station.
Benny’s mother would stand by her innocence until the very end, but the fact that she was witnessed by police in the middle of committing the act made it indefensible. Her trajectory to the lethal injection room was one of the swiftest the state had ever seen.
It was tragic. Benny was out both parents, and it was all the more tragic because Benny didn’t have any other family. His last grandparent had passed the year prior. He was due to go into foster care, but God bless my parents, because they took him in. Benny got to stay in town, with a family that loved him nearly as much as his own had.
Benny stayed in my life, it was the reverse of what had happened the year prior when his father had found us listening to the internet on the old machine. Now Benny was in my life more than ever, but also not.
Physically he was there. Benny and I shared a room, and we hung out all the time. Mentally, or perhaps even spiritually, Benny just wasn’t with me anymore. His soul was in some godsforsaken elsewhere. His inner self was closed off to me. My mind didn’t have the words or wisdom to say what was wrong, only that despite being around him nearly 24 hours a day, he felt absent.
It wasn’t until later, much later, years later really, when Benny and I were well into our teens that I felt like I saw the real him again. His home, and everything in it, the things that had once been his father’s, were his. He’d never cared much about that. He’d never even mentioned his not exactly meager inheritance beyond the vague idea that he supposed he would move into his old home once he became an adult. Other than that he made no mention of his old home, which sat dim and forgotten next to mine. He hadn’t so much as stepped inside of it since he left for school on the day of the murder.
But one day, on the porch, while the sun was beginning to die on the horizon, Benny asked me if I would go into his old house with him. We were pushing seventeen, and college bound so I supposed at the time that he was seeking a kind of closure. Despite the vast chasm that Benny’s depression had carved between us, I wanted to be there for my best friend, so I agreed to go along with him.
Once we were at his old doorstep, Benny produced a small, unopened, envelope. He tore it open, and produced a key that he used to open the door to his old home. I watched him do this and felt a pang in my heart that was something more than sadness. I didn’t have a name for it. I just knew that it was coming from Benny. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Benny looking behind him to see me, and flashing me the barest hint of a smile that was filled with the same sadness that panged in my chest a moment ago. It was the tiniest crease on the corner of his mouth, but it broke me. That crease was the most genuine thing I’d gotten from him in years.
I wish I had been brave enough to cry, but I swallowed those tears. Drowned out all emotion, because I thought that was what the burgeoning man I wanted to become would have done.
We entered the house, which was dark and smelled awful. There was a rot in there that had settled into the very foundation.
“Augh,” I let out, “what is that?”
“I– Uhm… I don’t now.” That’s what he said, but something told me that he did know. He just didn’t want to say it out loud for some reason.
In my role as supportive best friend, I still hadn’t asked why Benny had wanted to come back here. So I decided to do that then, but as he ascended up the stairs I knew there was only one destination he had in mind. His father’s study. The old machine.
I kept my mouth shut, but I wonder sometimes if maybe I should have started protesting. I wonder if maybe I should have dragged Benny back out the door, kicking and screaming, but those are just what ifs and meaningless regrets. Even if I dragged him out then and there, so what? He would just come back without me. If I had barred him in any way he would just choose a different time and place, and he would be doing it alone. No. I had no choice. It was inevitable. There’s no stopping the inevitable. So I did nothing.
We ascended up the stairs together. The smell of deep seeded rot grew heavier. It was in the stairs, in the walls, in wood and the furniture. Apart from the smell, everything looked normal, as if frozen in time. I could practically envision us running down the hallway playing tag.
That changed in the study.
Benny and I reached the door. Yellow police tape from when this was an active crime scene was still there. The rot was strongest here. Had the site of the murder never been cleaned?
As Benny turned the knob I swallowed back some anxious energy, and stowed it away in the same place that I threw that soul breaking pang in my heart.
Inside we found the desk, the books shelves, his father’s office chair. All of it was as it once was, except that now every inch of it was covered in a film of something that was muddy red. The sticky red room.
There was only one part of the study that was disturbingly clean of the muddy red source of the rot. The old machine.
It sat perched on the desk, slumbering and waiting. It was pristine. Its comically mundane beige casing was clean, and every piece and peripheral like the keyboard and attached phone were in mint condition. It was alien, how clean it was compared to everything else in the room.
Benny took a heavy breath, and stepped forward. He approached the old machine, examining it in the dying light of the sun.
“I’m going to need your help carrying this back home,” he said.
This would have been my second opportunity to say “no”. I should have, but again, why? All it would mean was another trip or two for him on his lonesome, and then I would just be the friend that bailed out on him halfway through something that seemed very important for him. So I said “okay.”
We gathered up the odd ends of the old machine. Benny carried the monitor, and I carried the thinking guts, and between us we shared the weight of the peripherals.
Once we were home, Benny got to work putting the thing back together. He seemed to fly into a manic fugue state. He worked rapidly to put the old machine together, connecting every odd end, beginning to sweat as he did so. His eyes became deranged, and then suddenly, with only the power cord left to plug in, he stopped.
He stared into the black abyss of the old machine’s monitor, and did nothing for a long minute that stretched out into eternity. Benny put the power cord down and shoved it into a box. I didn’t question this. If anything I was relieved. I hadn’t realized it until just then, but as Benny was putting the thing together I had started to feel a deadly pressure building in the back of my skull. I didn’t dare ask why he stopped, worried that I might accidentally reignite his resolve.
Together we chose to forget the old machine. Or so I thought.
The last few months of our senior year passed, and they were the best months I’d had with Benny in a long long while. I think collecting that beige heap of plastic, that old machine, it had brought something to a close for him. Whether it was simple catharsis or something more I’ll never know, but I’ll cherish those last few months for the rest of my life. It was the last I’d ever see of Benny again.
With college came real distance, and although we kept in touch through video and text, we never met in person, the times just never lined up. Benny was his own man, and although it brought a small amount of heartbreak to my parents that their adoptive son never seemed to find the time to visit them, they were more than anything glad to see that he at least seemed to be enjoying life. That was definitely the facade he sold on social media.
It was at the start of my second year at college that I got the first wisp that something was wrong with Benny. He sent me something, a file that I couldn’t open, in a format that I didn’t recognize. I thought it must be some kind of obscure meme, but when I couldn’t decipher it, I got a pit in my stomach and I sent him a brisk “wtf?”
He never replied.
It was the last of anything I would ever get from Benny personally. A few weeks later my parents contacted me to tell me that Benny had killed himself.
What followed was a rapid procession of life. That I somehow managed to continue to turn in my school work for the next week or so, was a fact. That I then used the following fall break to attend Benny’s funeral was also true. Mixed in there was a meeting with a lawyer that let me know that I was the sole inheritor of Benny’s estate. This all happened, and I have a very superficial recollection of it all. But in truth I was half a ghost myself. My body– no –my soul, had gone into a form of catatonia. I became an unchanging statue, a rock in the ever flowing stream of life. Things happened, but they seemed to flow past me in a ceaseless stream of almost memories.
On the last day of the fall semester, in a fit of pique depression, looking for something to occupy the void of my soul, I remembered the message that Benny had sent me. I redoubled my efforts to decipher the unknown file type, and scoured the internet for a decoder or playback device that would be able to read it for me. Eventually I stumbled on the answer. It was a type of sound file. With that information it was surprisingly simple to find an app to play it back.
I brought the file over to my phone, and loaded it into the app, and hit play. What came out were whispers. I dropped my phone like it was made of hot iron. The phone clattered to the floor, but kept playing the whispers, which remained just at the edge of audibility no matter how far away I retreated from them.
When it finished playing I was relieved. I also realized I had understood none of it. Unlike the whispers I had heard in my childhood, these had been unintelligible. I tried them again, but although I could hear something I could make out nothing. But I knew a way that I could. The old machine.
The next opportunity I got, I went home. I went back up to my room to look for the old machine, but of course it wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there for a long time. Benny had taken it with him when he went his own way during college. I had to ask my parents to help me find it, and they directed me to the garage, where boxes of Benny’s old things were piled up. Things he had taken with him and things that he had acquired while he was away at college. The old machine was packed into one of those boxes, with a sticky note on the screen. A phone number, possibly left there by Benny himself.
I took the box up to my old room and got to work putting the old machine back together. Slowly it came alive, and bit by bit I felt that dreadful pressure building in the base of my skull. As I connected the monitor to the thinking guts I felt a spark of awareness, as if I was suddenly in danger or being watched. As I connected the peripherals, the pressure around my skull grew heavier and I began to sweat. The feeling only intensified as I plugged the thing into the power, and it came to a pique when I finally connected the strange phone stand to the internet. It’s alive! Gods of all faith and creed, help me! It’s alive!
I turned it on.
The screen lit up, and I noticed that I’d forgotten to remove the sticky note that had been placed there. I ripped it off and crumpled it in my palm as I watched the old machine finish its startup sequence.
I’m not sure what I expected. I certainly hadn’t expected it to feel so normal, or look so mundane. The operating system was definitely proprietary but other than that it felt no more alien than Windows, or Apple. Navigating it felt as natural as anything.
I found the program that would allow me to interpret the whisper recording on my phone. It was the same one that would normally connect to the internet, except this time instead of letting the translator hear the bulky beige phone, I would put my smartphone up to the translator while the recording played. I did this, and for a few tense moments nothing seemed to happen, and then I noticed that something had been downloaded onto the desktop.
The file was called “Dad(1)” and for a moment I felt like an idiot. The “(1)” appearing after the word “Dad” suggested that a version of this file was already downloaded, and of course it would be, this was probably where Benny had sent me the file from. I checked the now translated file and saw that it was a video. The thumbnail showed a man sitting at his desk.
Benny’s dad.
My hand trembled as it reached for the mouse, and clicked on the video.
The video was a top down perspective of the study, and it started at 100, there was no buildup or context to what was happening on the screen. Benny’s father was skinning himself alive. The footage of it was grainy, and was twice as disturbing for it, because the more skin that Benny’s father peeled off the more grainy red pixels appeared on screen.
It was difficult to tell how much of this Benny’s father was doing of his own volition. Heavily pixelated expressions of agony played on his face. He twisted and squirmed, he writhed in pain and appeared to yell into the ceiling as he striped reels of flesh from his arm, and then his legs, and then his chest, and on and on. I couldn’t look away. As much as I wanted to look away I couldn’t, I was forced to watch by my own horribly morbid fascination. God help me. No. God forgive me. I. could. Not. Look. Away.
It was Benny’s father’s twisted and pained flailing that covered the study in blood, leaving the room red and sticky. How he produced so much blood, and in fact, how he had been able to remain conscious this whole time was a mystery to anyone. The act didn’t stop until a light appeared from offscreen, and then suddenly Benny’s mother barged into the study to see her screaming husband. He tried to skin her alive as well, but she fought back. They began to wrestle each other, slipping in the wet puddle of his blood. Soon the blood itself stopped being the worst thing on display, as the father’s viscera began to spill out of him, the membrane that had held it together inside his abdomen splitting open in the tussle. It was an awful scene, and still, I couldn’t look away.
The fight continued like that for some time. With the two of them on the ground, fighting for control of the knife that the father had used to skin himself alive. Even with half the father spilt and spread around the room it was a hard won victory for Benny’s mother. She finally managed to wrestle the knife away from the dying man, and plunged it into his chest, just as shadows appeared from the direction of the doorway. The mother broke down as police aimed their guns at her, and then the video ended.
“Did you like it?” appeared in text over the end of the video.
“What the fuck?” I remember saying out loud.
Why hadn’t Benny turned this in? I thought. His mom was dead, sure, but why not clear her name? Why hadn’t he told me straight away what he’d found? Why had he– I didn’t let myself ask that last question. Instead I unclenched my palm, and looked at the crumpled sticky note. If there was a logical answer to any of this, then maybe it was on the other end of that number. That’s what I told myself anyway.
I put my phone away, and picked up the phone attached to the old machine. It took a few tries to get the method of dialing correct– I’d never used a rotary style phone before, and I didn’t know how to spin the wheel to “dial” the number that I needed, but I managed it. The phone rang for a bit, and then the whispers started to erupt from whatever black beyond I called.
I placed the phone on the translator, and on the monitor, the desktop came alive. The old machine’s proprietary web browser opened and landed on a bare bones white webpage. It reminded me somewhat of a dark web directory.
The dark web isn’t as difficult to navigate as you might think. The difference between a dark web site and a regular one is that dark web sites are unlisted, meaning they don’t show up on search engines, and often they require special browsers and specific URLs. Those URLs are usually kept on some kind of surface web directory. This looked a lot like that. A list of URLs ran down the bare bones page in a ladder of blue.
They were hyperlinks, all of them, and one of them stood out to me immediately.
“Do you want to see how he did it?” It read.
It shouldn’t have freaked me out. There was no way that link could be talking about Benny, which is where my mind went first. There was simply no way.
So I clicked it. And I guess… there was. Somehow there was a way.
I won’t say what I saw. It wasn’t nearly as graphic as his father’s death. In that sense it wasn’t nearly as “interesting”, but even still I can’t bring myself to recount it. It’s too personal. In that way it was much much worse, so much worse. The look in his eyes… despair. There was something almost beautiful about it.
No.
There was something beautiful about it.
At the end of the video, a familiar message popped up.
“Did you like it?”
A box beneath the video asked for a reply. I typed one in.
“Do you want to see more?”
Another box. Another reply.
I saw more.
2024.05.18 16:56 kenUdigitt Novel Chapter 415
Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
Chapter 415
The battle commenced with alarming rapidity.
As a thick fog cascaded across the wilderness like a tidal wave, tens of thousands of monsters amassed before him. Hovering above the ground, the dark-skinned Grand Mage, Magic Johnson, declared the start of the conflict with a single, potent command:
「Fire Cannon.」
Swoosh.
Mana surged around him, conjuring five flames from the ether. They swelled, taking on the form and fury of cannonballs, before hurtling forward.
Whoosh, Boom!
The black tide of monsters was cleaved in two. The searing heat charred flesh and bone, liquefying the very earth beneath them.
This devastating spell incinerated a thousand creatures in an instant.
Yet the relentless tide of monsters pressed on, undeterred, as did Magic Johnson.
「Water Blaster.」
The air, once dry as sand from the Fire Cannon, now held a damp moisture.
Spreading his arms, Magic Johnson summoned a colossal wave that towered behind him.
It was a defiance of the laws of nature.
It was pure magic, a display of unparalleled might from the preeminent War Mage among his peers.
「Cover them.」
Gone was the jovial, smiling visage of Magic Johnson. In its place was a look of deep, intense determination.
With a sweeping gesture, he cast a vast, dark shadow over the advancing monsters.
Crash!
Powered by mana, the wave crashed down, its immense pressure exploding the bodies of the monsters.
As the flames dwindled and the ground soaked, Magic Johnson was already prepared for his next maneuver.
「Strike down. Lightning Rain.」
In an instant, dark clouds swarmed above the monsters, unleashing a barrage of lightning bolts.
Crack! Fizz!
- Roar!
- Aaaargh!
Lightning ravaged the sky and earth alike.
Blackened gargoyles and griffins toppled from the sky, while the wet earth conducted electricity.
Living monsters cringed and keeled over, screaming in agony, as the undead disintegrated into ash.
Amidst this awe-inspiring chaos, a groan of disbelief was heard.
「This is the power of a Grand Mage...」
The impact of merely three spells was staggering.
Countless monsters lay dead or incapacitated, a significant portion of their legion shattered.
Yet, even the Grand Mage, the sole architect of this devastation, could not escape the overwhelming exhaustion that followed.
「Fuck. If I'd known this would happen, I would've saved a few more spells.」
Magic is a complex art, and for Magic Johnson, a master of wide-area spells, the toll is as profound on his mind and mana as the devastation he wreaks.
Considering the mana he had already expended at the front lines before this, he had reached his limit.
「Mrs. Chen. I guess I'm getting old too.」
「Step back. We old folks need to stick together and help each other out. And...」
Fei Chen, discarding her whiskey bottle, quickly snatched the bow at her side.
An arrow made of mana materialized on the empty bowstring.
「It's Ms. Chen, not Mrs. Who decided I was married?」
With a huff, Fei Chen released the string. The arrow, blazing with light, tore through the air and the dense fog with a sharp twang. Then:
Boom!
A colossal explosion ensued.
Fei Chen observed as a Death Knight, hidden among the throng, was annihilated without a chance to utter its final cries. She drew her bowstring once more.
Twang, twang, twang!
Arrows transformed into beams of light streaking across the wilderness, each one obliterating scores of monsters.
If Magic Johnson ranks among the top three Grand Mages and is the foremost War Mage globally, then Fei Chen is the unrivaled archer of her time.
But...
- Roar!
- Screech!
The legion, numbering in the tens of thousands, surged forward, undeterred.
For every ten monsters felled, another ten emerged. For every hundred slain, another hundred rose.
These beasts, veiled in thick fog, were more formidable and ferocious than ordinary monsters. Now, only a direct confrontation remained.
As the monstrous legion advanced, both veterans stepped forward to meet them.
"Ares Guild. Formation B. Break through them."
Click-clack!
Under the composed direction of Lee Jeong-Ryong, the elite guild members, who had remained unscathed thus far, moved in unison.
Jin Tae-Kyung, having observed them from a distance, turned to the suicide squad he had assembled from the western front.
"Everyone, Formation J."
「Yes!」
「Formation J! Assume the formation!」
With resolute voices echoing in unison, the suicide squad sprang into action.
Behind Jin Tae-Kyung, Wu Hei-Xing, who had been rallying a small contingent of Red Guard Gang Hunters, grabbed a member of the suicide squad and asked,
「Hey, kid. What exactly is Formation J?」
Recognizing Wu Hei-Xing, Shao Shen frowned and replied,
「It's a combat formation decided by my Hyung.」
「So, what does it mean?」
「Jonna. He said it means to fight with everything we have.」 [Note: "Jonna" is a Korean slang for "fuck it".]
「…!」
Momentarily speechless, Wu Hei-Xing watched as Lee Jeong-Ryong and Jin Tae-Kyung charged forward.
Prince Felix and an army of ten thousand Hunters were not far behind.
「Aaaaaaah!」
- Roaaar!
Humans clashed with monsters.
Monsters clashed with humans.
The battlefield erupted into a cacophony of roars and murderous intent, as both sides hurtled across the wilderness, weapons and claws in deadly encounter.
Squeal, crack!
The brutal battle had commenced.
* * *
I leaned back, tensing my shoulders. With a swift motion, I hurled my arms forward, channeling all my strength.
Swoosh, flub-flub-flub!
White Flames shot from my hand, carving a path through dozens of monsters.
Seizing the fleeting opening, I plunged into the melee, my limbs a blur as I struck at any foe within reach.
Smack!
My fist connected with the skull of an onrushing Lycanthrope, smashing it like a grape.
Before the beast’s cranial fluid could splatter the earth, I was already airborne.
Click, whoosh!
I landed, locking eyes with a towering undead troll, its dim gaze meeting mine at four meters high.
Before the undead troll could wield its club, my palm slammed into its chest with crushing force.
Thump!
Intense heat burst forth, sending smoke billowing from the creature’s seven facial orifices. Struck by this lethal blow, the troll was obliterated instantly, its regenerative abilities rendered useless.
- Wicked human, behind you!
I know, I know. Who asked you anyway?
I muttered under my breath, whirling around just in time. A lance, dark with malevolent magic, whistled perilously close to my neck before soaring off into the distance.
The lance had been aimed to catch me mid-leap — a clever attempt, but they had underestimated me.
"Damn it. Why are there so many Death Knights? This isn't a chicken restaurant." [Note: I'm not sure what this is referencing. The best guess I can offer is that he's commenting on how crowded the battlefield was, similar to how crowded a chicken restaurant can get in Korea.]
Dodging the lance, I landed smoothly and immediately found myself facing a Death Knight barreling toward me on a skeletal steed.
- This is the end!
Whoosh!
The Knight shouted as he swung his sword, which glowed with a dark magic. Though his power didn't match an S-rank Hunter, it was certainly comparable to a top A-rank.
Maybe...
'This Death Knight was once a Hunter too.'
That thought crossed my mind as the specter of Lei Fei flashed before me, instilling a sudden pang of bitterness. Meanwhile, the Skeleton Warlord issued a shrill cry.
- Avoid it, human!
Pfft!
As if dissolved by an unseen force, the magic on the sword faded into nothing.
The Death Knight, looking dully at the mystical spear blade protruding through its chest, gasped feebly.
- How...
"This is the end."
Echoing the Knight’s earlier proclamation, I drove my spear downward.
"Whoever you were, you fought hard."
Screech, thud!
The skeletal horse and its rider split apart, vanishing into the ether. As before, I conjured White Flames to carve through the encroaching monsters, then asked aloud.
"Why aren't you begging for food now?"
- Ahem. What do you take this commander for?
Sizzle!
"Lazy bum. You say you don't want to fight but you drool over situations like this."
- What!
"Why, aren't I exactly right?"
- You agreed, you cunning human, that I wouldn't participate in the battle! And when was it that you said we mustn't let other humans find out that I exist?
"Excuses. So, do you want to eat this magic or not?"
- ...
Crack!
"Hey. Can't you hear?"
- Hmm. I don't really want to eat.
"...What?"
Swoosh!
Caught off guard, I narrowly dodged an incoming attack.
After dispatching about ten monsters with a sweeping strike of my spear, I posed a serious question,
"Why's that? Do you want to wither away to nothing?"
- Umm... I don't know. I just have a feeling.
"A feeling?"
- Yes. I'm undead, but sometimes even undead get moody. Just let me be.
"...Since when do the undead get moody?"
Normally, this one would have pounced like a starving dog. Why the sudden change?
'Do undead go through puberty?'
As much as the Skeleton Warlord is an odd monster, this was nonsensical.
I stopped pondering over it and resumed slicing through monsters when suddenly,
Kaboom!
An area about ten meters in diameter was engulfed by an aura, or rather, Sword Qi.
In an instant, the frontline was cleared, and a figure gently descended.
"There are too many monsters. It's impossible for the entire suicide squad to break out."
I understood exactly what Lee Jeong-Ryong meant.
"You mean, we should go with a select few elites?"
"That's right. Get ready."
As Lee Jeong-Ryong spoke, I ducked as a crescent of Sword Qi whistled past, slicing through several large monsters as if they were mere cheesecake.
What if that Sword Qi had been aimed at me? If Lee Jeong-Ryong and I were to face off...
"You, me, and Wu Hei-Xing. The three of us should be enough."
Licking my parched lips, I responded,
"That's quite strange."
"What is?"
"You never know until you fight. We won't know how strong the Arch Lich is until we face it."
"There are three of us who are S-rank Hunters. No matter how strong the Arch Lich might be, it's no match for us."
Us...
It's a comforting word, yet why does it leave such a sour taste?
Perhaps it's due to the individuals included in this 'us.'
Nevertheless, I had committed to the suicide squad tactic since I had proposed it. From that perspective, Lee Jeong-Ryong's proposal was optimal.
"Let's do that. Where is Wu Hei-Xing?"
Crack!
No sooner had I spoken than Wu Hei-Xing burst through the horde, slashing his way through.
In stark contrast to the pristine Lee Jeong-Ryong, Wu Hei-Xing appeared battered, yet his eyes sparkled with unabated vigor.
"Luckily, you arrived in time."
「Hmph. As if monsters like these could stop me.」
Hadn’t he nearly succumbed to these very 'monsters like these' just an hour ago?
I was internally chiding Wu Hei-Xing's unimproved mental state when it occurred.
"Mr. Jin Tae-Kyung!"
The call came from Mr. Choi, sounding across the battlefield.
Between the swarms of monsters, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Mr. Choi’s face before it vanished.
Then, something gleaming arced through the air and embedded itself in the earth near me.
'This is...'
It was unmistakable — the [Hero's Soul]. From his obscured position, Mr. Choi called out,
"I won’t join you, but take this sword. And... be careful!"
His words were heavy with implication. Without a word, I grasped the [Hero's Soul].
Beyond the throng of monsters, the darkened cityscape loomed.
"Let's go."
Lee Jeong-Ryong offered a gentle smile.
Previous Table of Contents
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Chapter 415
The battle commenced with alarming rapidity.
As a thick fog cascaded across the wilderness like a tidal wave, tens of thousands of monsters amassed before him. Hovering above the ground, the dark-skinned Grand Mage, Magic Johnson, declared the start of the conflict with a single, potent command:
「Fire Cannon.」
Swoosh.
Mana surged around him, conjuring five flames from the ether. They swelled, taking on the form and fury of cannonballs, before hurtling forward.
Whoosh, Boom!
The black tide of monsters was cleaved in two. The searing heat charred flesh and bone, liquefying the very earth beneath them.
This devastating spell incinerated a thousand creatures in an instant.
Yet the relentless tide of monsters pressed on, undeterred, as did Magic Johnson.
「Water Blaster.」
The air, once dry as sand from the Fire Cannon, now held a damp moisture.
Spreading his arms, Magic Johnson summoned a colossal wave that towered behind him.
It was a defiance of the laws of nature.
It was pure magic, a display of unparalleled might from the preeminent War Mage among his peers.
「Cover them.」
Gone was the jovial, smiling visage of Magic Johnson. In its place was a look of deep, intense determination.
With a sweeping gesture, he cast a vast, dark shadow over the advancing monsters.
Crash!
Powered by mana, the wave crashed down, its immense pressure exploding the bodies of the monsters.
As the flames dwindled and the ground soaked, Magic Johnson was already prepared for his next maneuver.
「Strike down. Lightning Rain.」
In an instant, dark clouds swarmed above the monsters, unleashing a barrage of lightning bolts.
Crack! Fizz!
- Roar!
- Aaaargh!
Lightning ravaged the sky and earth alike.
Blackened gargoyles and griffins toppled from the sky, while the wet earth conducted electricity.
Living monsters cringed and keeled over, screaming in agony, as the undead disintegrated into ash.
Amidst this awe-inspiring chaos, a groan of disbelief was heard.
「This is the power of a Grand Mage...」
The impact of merely three spells was staggering.
Countless monsters lay dead or incapacitated, a significant portion of their legion shattered.
Yet, even the Grand Mage, the sole architect of this devastation, could not escape the overwhelming exhaustion that followed.
「Fuck. If I'd known this would happen, I would've saved a few more spells.」
Magic is a complex art, and for Magic Johnson, a master of wide-area spells, the toll is as profound on his mind and mana as the devastation he wreaks.
Considering the mana he had already expended at the front lines before this, he had reached his limit.
「Mrs. Chen. I guess I'm getting old too.」
「Step back. We old folks need to stick together and help each other out. And...」
Fei Chen, discarding her whiskey bottle, quickly snatched the bow at her side.
An arrow made of mana materialized on the empty bowstring.
「It's Ms. Chen, not Mrs. Who decided I was married?」
With a huff, Fei Chen released the string. The arrow, blazing with light, tore through the air and the dense fog with a sharp twang. Then:
Boom!
A colossal explosion ensued.
Fei Chen observed as a Death Knight, hidden among the throng, was annihilated without a chance to utter its final cries. She drew her bowstring once more.
Twang, twang, twang!
Arrows transformed into beams of light streaking across the wilderness, each one obliterating scores of monsters.
If Magic Johnson ranks among the top three Grand Mages and is the foremost War Mage globally, then Fei Chen is the unrivaled archer of her time.
But...
- Roar!
- Screech!
The legion, numbering in the tens of thousands, surged forward, undeterred.
For every ten monsters felled, another ten emerged. For every hundred slain, another hundred rose.
These beasts, veiled in thick fog, were more formidable and ferocious than ordinary monsters. Now, only a direct confrontation remained.
As the monstrous legion advanced, both veterans stepped forward to meet them.
"Ares Guild. Formation B. Break through them."
Click-clack!
Under the composed direction of Lee Jeong-Ryong, the elite guild members, who had remained unscathed thus far, moved in unison.
Jin Tae-Kyung, having observed them from a distance, turned to the suicide squad he had assembled from the western front.
"Everyone, Formation J."
「Yes!」
「Formation J! Assume the formation!」
With resolute voices echoing in unison, the suicide squad sprang into action.
Behind Jin Tae-Kyung, Wu Hei-Xing, who had been rallying a small contingent of Red Guard Gang Hunters, grabbed a member of the suicide squad and asked,
「Hey, kid. What exactly is Formation J?」
Recognizing Wu Hei-Xing, Shao Shen frowned and replied,
「It's a combat formation decided by my Hyung.」
「So, what does it mean?」
「Jonna. He said it means to fight with everything we have.」 [Note: "Jonna" is a Korean slang for "fuck it".]
「…!」
Momentarily speechless, Wu Hei-Xing watched as Lee Jeong-Ryong and Jin Tae-Kyung charged forward.
Prince Felix and an army of ten thousand Hunters were not far behind.
「Aaaaaaah!」
- Roaaar!
Humans clashed with monsters.
Monsters clashed with humans.
The battlefield erupted into a cacophony of roars and murderous intent, as both sides hurtled across the wilderness, weapons and claws in deadly encounter.
Squeal, crack!
The brutal battle had commenced.
* * *
I leaned back, tensing my shoulders. With a swift motion, I hurled my arms forward, channeling all my strength.
Swoosh, flub-flub-flub!
White Flames shot from my hand, carving a path through dozens of monsters.
Seizing the fleeting opening, I plunged into the melee, my limbs a blur as I struck at any foe within reach.
Smack!
My fist connected with the skull of an onrushing Lycanthrope, smashing it like a grape.
Before the beast’s cranial fluid could splatter the earth, I was already airborne.
Click, whoosh!
I landed, locking eyes with a towering undead troll, its dim gaze meeting mine at four meters high.
Before the undead troll could wield its club, my palm slammed into its chest with crushing force.
Thump!
Intense heat burst forth, sending smoke billowing from the creature’s seven facial orifices. Struck by this lethal blow, the troll was obliterated instantly, its regenerative abilities rendered useless.
- Wicked human, behind you!
I know, I know. Who asked you anyway?
I muttered under my breath, whirling around just in time. A lance, dark with malevolent magic, whistled perilously close to my neck before soaring off into the distance.
The lance had been aimed to catch me mid-leap — a clever attempt, but they had underestimated me.
"Damn it. Why are there so many Death Knights? This isn't a chicken restaurant." [Note: I'm not sure what this is referencing. The best guess I can offer is that he's commenting on how crowded the battlefield was, similar to how crowded a chicken restaurant can get in Korea.]
Dodging the lance, I landed smoothly and immediately found myself facing a Death Knight barreling toward me on a skeletal steed.
- This is the end!
Whoosh!
The Knight shouted as he swung his sword, which glowed with a dark magic. Though his power didn't match an S-rank Hunter, it was certainly comparable to a top A-rank.
Maybe...
'This Death Knight was once a Hunter too.'
That thought crossed my mind as the specter of Lei Fei flashed before me, instilling a sudden pang of bitterness. Meanwhile, the Skeleton Warlord issued a shrill cry.
- Avoid it, human!
Pfft!
As if dissolved by an unseen force, the magic on the sword faded into nothing.
The Death Knight, looking dully at the mystical spear blade protruding through its chest, gasped feebly.
- How...
"This is the end."
Echoing the Knight’s earlier proclamation, I drove my spear downward.
"Whoever you were, you fought hard."
Screech, thud!
The skeletal horse and its rider split apart, vanishing into the ether. As before, I conjured White Flames to carve through the encroaching monsters, then asked aloud.
"Why aren't you begging for food now?"
- Ahem. What do you take this commander for?
Sizzle!
"Lazy bum. You say you don't want to fight but you drool over situations like this."
- What!
"Why, aren't I exactly right?"
- You agreed, you cunning human, that I wouldn't participate in the battle! And when was it that you said we mustn't let other humans find out that I exist?
"Excuses. So, do you want to eat this magic or not?"
- ...
Crack!
"Hey. Can't you hear?"
- Hmm. I don't really want to eat.
"...What?"
Swoosh!
Caught off guard, I narrowly dodged an incoming attack.
After dispatching about ten monsters with a sweeping strike of my spear, I posed a serious question,
"Why's that? Do you want to wither away to nothing?"
- Umm... I don't know. I just have a feeling.
"A feeling?"
- Yes. I'm undead, but sometimes even undead get moody. Just let me be.
"...Since when do the undead get moody?"
Normally, this one would have pounced like a starving dog. Why the sudden change?
'Do undead go through puberty?'
As much as the Skeleton Warlord is an odd monster, this was nonsensical.
I stopped pondering over it and resumed slicing through monsters when suddenly,
Kaboom!
An area about ten meters in diameter was engulfed by an aura, or rather, Sword Qi.
In an instant, the frontline was cleared, and a figure gently descended.
"There are too many monsters. It's impossible for the entire suicide squad to break out."
I understood exactly what Lee Jeong-Ryong meant.
"You mean, we should go with a select few elites?"
"That's right. Get ready."
As Lee Jeong-Ryong spoke, I ducked as a crescent of Sword Qi whistled past, slicing through several large monsters as if they were mere cheesecake.
What if that Sword Qi had been aimed at me? If Lee Jeong-Ryong and I were to face off...
"You, me, and Wu Hei-Xing. The three of us should be enough."
Licking my parched lips, I responded,
"That's quite strange."
"What is?"
"You never know until you fight. We won't know how strong the Arch Lich is until we face it."
"There are three of us who are S-rank Hunters. No matter how strong the Arch Lich might be, it's no match for us."
Us...
It's a comforting word, yet why does it leave such a sour taste?
Perhaps it's due to the individuals included in this 'us.'
Nevertheless, I had committed to the suicide squad tactic since I had proposed it. From that perspective, Lee Jeong-Ryong's proposal was optimal.
"Let's do that. Where is Wu Hei-Xing?"
Crack!
No sooner had I spoken than Wu Hei-Xing burst through the horde, slashing his way through.
In stark contrast to the pristine Lee Jeong-Ryong, Wu Hei-Xing appeared battered, yet his eyes sparkled with unabated vigor.
"Luckily, you arrived in time."
「Hmph. As if monsters like these could stop me.」
Hadn’t he nearly succumbed to these very 'monsters like these' just an hour ago?
I was internally chiding Wu Hei-Xing's unimproved mental state when it occurred.
"Mr. Jin Tae-Kyung!"
The call came from Mr. Choi, sounding across the battlefield.
Between the swarms of monsters, I caught a fleeting glimpse of Mr. Choi’s face before it vanished.
Then, something gleaming arced through the air and embedded itself in the earth near me.
'This is...'
It was unmistakable — the [Hero's Soul]. From his obscured position, Mr. Choi called out,
"I won’t join you, but take this sword. And... be careful!"
His words were heavy with implication. Without a word, I grasped the [Hero's Soul].
Beyond the throng of monsters, the darkened cityscape loomed.
"Let's go."
Lee Jeong-Ryong offered a gentle smile.
Previous Table of Contents
2024.05.18 16:54 kenUdigitt Novel Chapter 411
Disclaimer: I do not speak Korean. This is purely translated by machine with a lot of cleanup afterward. With that in mind, I am open to criticism to improve these translations. Enjoy!
Chapter 411
For a moment, it felt as if the world had stopped.
Instincts kicked in faster than my brain could process the situation.
The breaths of people and the roars of monsters seemed miles away, and my heightened senses absorbed every detail.
Shwaaah.
Blood droplets, soil, and dust hung in the air. The mist was so thick it felt like I could carve through it.
And suddenly...
'Qi.'
I felt it. The massive surge of Qi enveloped the area for hundreds of meters. As my survival instincts screamed at me, I launched myself upwards.
“Take cover—!”
Boom!
A blinding flash was followed by a deafening explosion that shook the earth. I scanned the battlefield from about ten meters above.
Just seconds earlier, the spot where I had been standing was now a scorched wasteland, stretching for hundreds of meters.
Through the lingering mist and rising dust clouds, I saw the ground covered in green blood and the shattered remains of monsters.
'Magic Trap.'
Facing an unseen enemy means having to be prepared for every possible scenario.
'There's no room for mercy in war.'
The countless wars recorded in human history serve as witnesses, prosecutors, and judges.
Even humans commit horrific atrocities in wartime; expecting mercy from monsters is absurd.
Thus, vigilance is essential in war. It reduces the risk of falling into enemy traps and minimizes sacrifices.
Just like now.
Tap.
I landed lightly and extended my hand. Bang! Compressed air burst forth, scattering the dust cloud.
Amidst the blood and corpses that littered the area, familiar faces emerged.
“Mr. Choi.”
Mr. Choi nodded after taking a deep breath. Behind him stood about two hundred members of the suicide squad, their faces pale with fright.
“There are a few injuries, but... everyone is safe.”
“That's a relief.”
“It was an incredibly powerful trap. If it weren't for this, most of us, including myself, would probably be dead.”
Swoosh, humm.
Mr. Choi reached out and touched the transparent barrier that appeared before him.
The barrier that enveloped him and the entire suicide squad was a spell inscribed on a scroll by a Grand Mage, one of the greatest mages among billions.
“When the battle is over, we must find Mr. Johnson first. We owe our lives to his magic.”
“Are you going to give him a kiss of gratitude?”
“Based on how I'm feeling now, I might do anything.”
Shao Shen, exhaling a breath he had been holding, responded to Mr. Choi’s words.
「I can do even more than that. This is really...」
He couldn't finish his sentence and looked around.
The explosion had been immense. At least a thousand monsters had been killed or incapacitated.
An indiscriminate trap. The Arch Lich had sacrificed countless minions to trap me and the suicide squad.
‘Look at this bastard...’
I had anticipated some of this, but the Arch Lich’s cunning and boldness exceeded my expectations.
If my signal had been even a moment late, and if we hadn't pushed through the monsters that were serving as bait, the entire suicide squad would have perished here.
‘Just like that day.’
An unforgettable memory. Such a tragedy must never happen again.
I turned and said,
“Keep your distance and follow me. Our goal is not to fight the monsters but to break through them.”
The suicide squad responded with a resounding roar. The monster army, which had lost many members in the explosion and was in disarray, hesitated and retreated.
When crisis turns into opportunity, we must not miss this chance.
“Charge—!”
With a dragon's roar imbued with Qi, I launched myself at the incoming monsters. Swish, the neck of a retreating monster flew into the air.
Toward the monster army, now with gaps created by the explosion, the two hundred members of the suicide squad charged like a spear, while the main force at the rear followed like a crashing wave.
Waaaaaaah—!
A deafening roar echoed across the battlefield. Green blood spread through the mist.
Far above, a flock of crows circled, overlooking the battlefield.
* * *
Upon a throne made of white bones, a being who had been sitting as if asleep suddenly opened its eyes.
From the empty sockets of the skull, a fierce light erupted, and a low murmur flowed out.
- Impressive.
The Arch Lich has hundreds of eyes and ears.
Even now, the familiars deployed across the battlefield were capturing every detail without missing a single moment.
Humans and monsters clashed fiercely, and the group of humans was making swift progress.
‘Suicide squad. That’s what they were called, wasn’t it?’
The Arch Lich recalled an old, dusty memory. A memory that, even after what felt like an eternity submerged in the river of death, he could not forget.
‘The Adversary.’
How could he forget? The human who had been at the center of everything and the suicide squad of humans who had risked death and charged alongside him.
‘It was him who drove the sword into my body.’
The Arch Lich looked at his own body, made of jet-black bones.
In the past, he had not been a lowly undead. He had been a noble and mighty being, trusted by the King, commanding countless monsters.
But on the day of the final battle, he too had fallen, along with the King. And it had been at the hands of a mere human.
- But… where is the Adversary? [Note: speculation time. The switch from the MC's point of view to the Arch Lich's made it seem like the Arch Lich is talking about the MC, but this seems unlikely since the MC hasn't faced any "King" monster before. By the same logic, it probably couldn't be Mr. Choi either, because the Arch Lich would have recognized him when he saw Mr. Choi with the MC. This makes me think that the most likely candidate for this "Adversary" is Lee Jeong-Ryong. If this is true, then the "King" that the Arch Lich used to serve could be Asmodeus, and the Arch Lich was one of the monsters fighting in the Great Cataclysm.]
The Arch Lich's voice was filled with curiosity.
He had surveyed all the fronts using his familiars, but the Adversary, who should have appeared, was nowhere to be seen. He recognized a few humans from his memory, but that was all.
‘Could it be?’
For a moment, the Arch Lich's eyes blazed intensely as he considered the possibility.
It was hard to believe, but if - just if - the Adversary had died... If he had met the fate of a mortal...
- Kha, khahaha!
His statue-like body trembled. The ground shook and the air quivered with his magic-laden laughter.
The guards, realizing their master's mood had changed, prostrated themselves.
- My lord.
- What troubles you?
The appearance of the guards was impressive. Each one rivaled a Named Monster, and there were twenty Death Knights and Liches in total, each cloaked in deeply blackened robes.
Creations made to face the Adversary. But now his thoughts had changed.
The Arch Lich, who had been laughing with joy, finally spoke.
- Listen, my loyal servants.
- At your command.
The Arch Lich stood and looked down at his subordinates. His eerie voice echoed through the space.
- Go to the battlefield. Crush and sweep away those insignificant humans.
The twenty Death Knights and Liches bowed without hesitation.
The Arch Lich was the lord of all undead present. There could be no doubt in following his command.
- We obey the Lord’s command.
With a unified response, they each went their separate ways.
The space became empty again. The Arch Lich, who had been laughing alone, sat on the skull throne and focused his mind.
As he observed the battlefield through the eyes and ears of numerous familiars, he suddenly paused.
- But... who is that human?
In the black eyes of the crows flying across the sky, he saw a young human cutting down monsters amidst a bloodbath.
A face that didn’t exist in his past memories. But it was a face he had seen through a familiar just a few days ago.
- The human who defeated the Death Knight Lord.
The Death Knight Lord, created using Lei Fei, was the Arch Lich’s greatest masterpiece among all his creations.
Though the transformation was incomplete due to Lei Fei's strong soul, the Arch Lich had imbued some of his own power into the Death Knight Lord, leaving no doubt about his strength.
All of his effort was for naught, as the best of his forces and precious magic power had been washed down the drain. All because of that insignificant human.
- Annoying. I’ll take care of him for sure this time.
Having decided to eliminate him, the Arch Lich sent out a thought.
Half of the guards heading to the fronts changed direction according to their Lord’s command.
* * *
Crack!
Wind, weapons, and the incredibly tough bodies of monsters.
Everything caught in the path of the spear blade was sliced apart.
Heads flew, and thick limbs soared through the air.
The troll, still barely alive, didn’t have time to regenerate before its body was shredded, and the ogre, half-decayed and undead, staggered before its upper body was severed by the sword.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
Wielding [Hero’s Soul], Mr. Choi cut down three or four monsters in an instant and shouted.
“Mr. Jin Tae-Kyung! The monsters' assault is too strong!”
His words were true. After breaking through the front line, the number of monsters decreased, but the quality of the troops increased significantly.
‘I expected this.’
The monsters at the front, used to overwhelm us long enough for the magic trap to catch us, were mostly mid to low-tier.
The Arch Lich had placed elites in the rear and used the other monsters as bait and meat shields.
‘To drain our strength.’
In addition, the thickening mist made the battle even more difficult.
The mist not only strengthened the monsters, but it also hindered visibility and hearing.
Conditions that were inevitably advantageous for monsters with superior senses compared to humans.
Of course......
'I'm an exception.'
Ssssss, Phwack!
The spear I flung with all my might skewered seven monsters.
Shao Shen and the rest of the Hunters in the suicide squad nodded their gratitude.
"Everyone, group up towards me!"
「But there are only a few magic scrolls left. If another magic trap activates......」
"No time to explain! To me! Now!"
At my shout, Mr. Choi and Shao Shen nodded and moved forward with the suicide squad.
I know what they are thinking, but we have already passed through three magic traps, and this is where the Arch Lich has gathered his elite forces. The chance of a trap activating is slim.
"Focus on defense rather than attack. Move forward!"
The battle itself has become more difficult, but with the chances of triggering a trap reduced, my heart feels lighter.
It's trivial if I have to deal with the traps by myself, but for the rest of the squad members, they pose a fatal threat.
'The last destination is just ahead. We will minimize casualties and join up with Lee Jeong-Ryong and Wu Hei-Xing.'
Screech! Crunch, crunch!
At that moment, as I led the vanguard and began to feel the accumulating fatigue...
- Everyone, come out!
- Human, by the command of our Monarch, I will take your life.
Like the parting of the Red Sea, the curtain of monsters split left and right. The beings that appeared made me stare in shock.
[Lv.120 Shadow Lich]
[Lv.115 Shadow Death Knight]
There were ten creatures over level 120. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe, and my hands and feet trembled.
Mr. Choi, seeing me shaking like a leaf, shouted in a voice filled with despair.
"We must retreat immediately!"
"Mr. Choi... Mr. Choi."
"Snap out of it, Mr. Jin Tae-Kyung!"
"Lunch is here."
"If this continues, it will be a complete wipeout... Huh?"
I looked at the ten monsters, no, the lunchboxes with trembling eyes.
"The lunch delivery is here."
"......?"
- ……?
- ……?
Put the question marks away, you bastards.
It's One Strike time.
Previous Table of Contents Next
submitted by kenUdigitt to u/kenUdigitt [link] [comments]
Chapter 411
For a moment, it felt as if the world had stopped.
Instincts kicked in faster than my brain could process the situation.
The breaths of people and the roars of monsters seemed miles away, and my heightened senses absorbed every detail.
Shwaaah.
Blood droplets, soil, and dust hung in the air. The mist was so thick it felt like I could carve through it.
And suddenly...
'Qi.'
I felt it. The massive surge of Qi enveloped the area for hundreds of meters. As my survival instincts screamed at me, I launched myself upwards.
“Take cover—!”
Boom!
A blinding flash was followed by a deafening explosion that shook the earth. I scanned the battlefield from about ten meters above.
Just seconds earlier, the spot where I had been standing was now a scorched wasteland, stretching for hundreds of meters.
Through the lingering mist and rising dust clouds, I saw the ground covered in green blood and the shattered remains of monsters.
'Magic Trap.'
Facing an unseen enemy means having to be prepared for every possible scenario.
'There's no room for mercy in war.'
The countless wars recorded in human history serve as witnesses, prosecutors, and judges.
Even humans commit horrific atrocities in wartime; expecting mercy from monsters is absurd.
Thus, vigilance is essential in war. It reduces the risk of falling into enemy traps and minimizes sacrifices.
Just like now.
Tap.
I landed lightly and extended my hand. Bang! Compressed air burst forth, scattering the dust cloud.
Amidst the blood and corpses that littered the area, familiar faces emerged.
“Mr. Choi.”
Mr. Choi nodded after taking a deep breath. Behind him stood about two hundred members of the suicide squad, their faces pale with fright.
“There are a few injuries, but... everyone is safe.”
“That's a relief.”
“It was an incredibly powerful trap. If it weren't for this, most of us, including myself, would probably be dead.”
Swoosh, humm.
Mr. Choi reached out and touched the transparent barrier that appeared before him.
The barrier that enveloped him and the entire suicide squad was a spell inscribed on a scroll by a Grand Mage, one of the greatest mages among billions.
“When the battle is over, we must find Mr. Johnson first. We owe our lives to his magic.”
“Are you going to give him a kiss of gratitude?”
“Based on how I'm feeling now, I might do anything.”
Shao Shen, exhaling a breath he had been holding, responded to Mr. Choi’s words.
「I can do even more than that. This is really...」
He couldn't finish his sentence and looked around.
The explosion had been immense. At least a thousand monsters had been killed or incapacitated.
An indiscriminate trap. The Arch Lich had sacrificed countless minions to trap me and the suicide squad.
‘Look at this bastard...’
I had anticipated some of this, but the Arch Lich’s cunning and boldness exceeded my expectations.
If my signal had been even a moment late, and if we hadn't pushed through the monsters that were serving as bait, the entire suicide squad would have perished here.
‘Just like that day.’
An unforgettable memory. Such a tragedy must never happen again.
I turned and said,
“Keep your distance and follow me. Our goal is not to fight the monsters but to break through them.”
The suicide squad responded with a resounding roar. The monster army, which had lost many members in the explosion and was in disarray, hesitated and retreated.
When crisis turns into opportunity, we must not miss this chance.
“Charge—!”
With a dragon's roar imbued with Qi, I launched myself at the incoming monsters. Swish, the neck of a retreating monster flew into the air.
Toward the monster army, now with gaps created by the explosion, the two hundred members of the suicide squad charged like a spear, while the main force at the rear followed like a crashing wave.
Waaaaaaah—!
A deafening roar echoed across the battlefield. Green blood spread through the mist.
Far above, a flock of crows circled, overlooking the battlefield.
* * *
Upon a throne made of white bones, a being who had been sitting as if asleep suddenly opened its eyes.
From the empty sockets of the skull, a fierce light erupted, and a low murmur flowed out.
- Impressive.
The Arch Lich has hundreds of eyes and ears.
Even now, the familiars deployed across the battlefield were capturing every detail without missing a single moment.
Humans and monsters clashed fiercely, and the group of humans was making swift progress.
‘Suicide squad. That’s what they were called, wasn’t it?’
The Arch Lich recalled an old, dusty memory. A memory that, even after what felt like an eternity submerged in the river of death, he could not forget.
‘The Adversary.’
How could he forget? The human who had been at the center of everything and the suicide squad of humans who had risked death and charged alongside him.
‘It was him who drove the sword into my body.’
The Arch Lich looked at his own body, made of jet-black bones.
In the past, he had not been a lowly undead. He had been a noble and mighty being, trusted by the King, commanding countless monsters.
But on the day of the final battle, he too had fallen, along with the King. And it had been at the hands of a mere human.
- But… where is the Adversary? [Note: speculation time. The switch from the MC's point of view to the Arch Lich's made it seem like the Arch Lich is talking about the MC, but this seems unlikely since the MC hasn't faced any "King" monster before. By the same logic, it probably couldn't be Mr. Choi either, because the Arch Lich would have recognized him when he saw Mr. Choi with the MC. This makes me think that the most likely candidate for this "Adversary" is Lee Jeong-Ryong. If this is true, then the "King" that the Arch Lich used to serve could be Asmodeus, and the Arch Lich was one of the monsters fighting in the Great Cataclysm.]
The Arch Lich's voice was filled with curiosity.
He had surveyed all the fronts using his familiars, but the Adversary, who should have appeared, was nowhere to be seen. He recognized a few humans from his memory, but that was all.
‘Could it be?’
For a moment, the Arch Lich's eyes blazed intensely as he considered the possibility.
It was hard to believe, but if - just if - the Adversary had died... If he had met the fate of a mortal...
- Kha, khahaha!
His statue-like body trembled. The ground shook and the air quivered with his magic-laden laughter.
The guards, realizing their master's mood had changed, prostrated themselves.
- My lord.
- What troubles you?
The appearance of the guards was impressive. Each one rivaled a Named Monster, and there were twenty Death Knights and Liches in total, each cloaked in deeply blackened robes.
Creations made to face the Adversary. But now his thoughts had changed.
The Arch Lich, who had been laughing with joy, finally spoke.
- Listen, my loyal servants.
- At your command.
The Arch Lich stood and looked down at his subordinates. His eerie voice echoed through the space.
- Go to the battlefield. Crush and sweep away those insignificant humans.
The twenty Death Knights and Liches bowed without hesitation.
The Arch Lich was the lord of all undead present. There could be no doubt in following his command.
- We obey the Lord’s command.
With a unified response, they each went their separate ways.
The space became empty again. The Arch Lich, who had been laughing alone, sat on the skull throne and focused his mind.
As he observed the battlefield through the eyes and ears of numerous familiars, he suddenly paused.
- But... who is that human?
In the black eyes of the crows flying across the sky, he saw a young human cutting down monsters amidst a bloodbath.
A face that didn’t exist in his past memories. But it was a face he had seen through a familiar just a few days ago.
- The human who defeated the Death Knight Lord.
The Death Knight Lord, created using Lei Fei, was the Arch Lich’s greatest masterpiece among all his creations.
Though the transformation was incomplete due to Lei Fei's strong soul, the Arch Lich had imbued some of his own power into the Death Knight Lord, leaving no doubt about his strength.
All of his effort was for naught, as the best of his forces and precious magic power had been washed down the drain. All because of that insignificant human.
- Annoying. I’ll take care of him for sure this time.
Having decided to eliminate him, the Arch Lich sent out a thought.
Half of the guards heading to the fronts changed direction according to their Lord’s command.
* * *
Crack!
Wind, weapons, and the incredibly tough bodies of monsters.
Everything caught in the path of the spear blade was sliced apart.
Heads flew, and thick limbs soared through the air.
The troll, still barely alive, didn’t have time to regenerate before its body was shredded, and the ogre, half-decayed and undead, staggered before its upper body was severed by the sword.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
Wielding [Hero’s Soul], Mr. Choi cut down three or four monsters in an instant and shouted.
“Mr. Jin Tae-Kyung! The monsters' assault is too strong!”
His words were true. After breaking through the front line, the number of monsters decreased, but the quality of the troops increased significantly.
‘I expected this.’
The monsters at the front, used to overwhelm us long enough for the magic trap to catch us, were mostly mid to low-tier.
The Arch Lich had placed elites in the rear and used the other monsters as bait and meat shields.
‘To drain our strength.’
In addition, the thickening mist made the battle even more difficult.
The mist not only strengthened the monsters, but it also hindered visibility and hearing.
Conditions that were inevitably advantageous for monsters with superior senses compared to humans.
Of course......
'I'm an exception.'
Ssssss, Phwack!
The spear I flung with all my might skewered seven monsters.
Shao Shen and the rest of the Hunters in the suicide squad nodded their gratitude.
"Everyone, group up towards me!"
「But there are only a few magic scrolls left. If another magic trap activates......」
"No time to explain! To me! Now!"
At my shout, Mr. Choi and Shao Shen nodded and moved forward with the suicide squad.
I know what they are thinking, but we have already passed through three magic traps, and this is where the Arch Lich has gathered his elite forces. The chance of a trap activating is slim.
"Focus on defense rather than attack. Move forward!"
The battle itself has become more difficult, but with the chances of triggering a trap reduced, my heart feels lighter.
It's trivial if I have to deal with the traps by myself, but for the rest of the squad members, they pose a fatal threat.
'The last destination is just ahead. We will minimize casualties and join up with Lee Jeong-Ryong and Wu Hei-Xing.'
Screech! Crunch, crunch!
At that moment, as I led the vanguard and began to feel the accumulating fatigue...
- Everyone, come out!
- Human, by the command of our Monarch, I will take your life.
Like the parting of the Red Sea, the curtain of monsters split left and right. The beings that appeared made me stare in shock.
[Lv.120 Shadow Lich]
[Lv.115 Shadow Death Knight]
There were ten creatures over level 120. Suddenly, I couldn't breathe, and my hands and feet trembled.
Mr. Choi, seeing me shaking like a leaf, shouted in a voice filled with despair.
"We must retreat immediately!"
"Mr. Choi... Mr. Choi."
"Snap out of it, Mr. Jin Tae-Kyung!"
"Lunch is here."
"If this continues, it will be a complete wipeout... Huh?"
I looked at the ten monsters, no, the lunchboxes with trembling eyes.
"The lunch delivery is here."
"......?"
- ……?
- ……?
Put the question marks away, you bastards.
It's One Strike time.
Previous Table of Contents Next
2024.05.18 16:38 Armorwing01 Fan Servant: Saber Class Percival
Personal Info-
Real Name: Percival, Perceval
Class: Saber
Gender: Male
Source: Arthurian Legend, Perceval
Region: Britain
Alignment: Lawful Good
Height: 195cm
Weight: 110kg
Parameters-
Strength: B+
Endurance: B
Agility: C
Mana: D
Luck: B
NP: B+
Class Skills-
Magic Resistance: C
Cancel spells with a chant below two verses. Cannot defend against magecraft on the level of greater magecraft and Greater Rituals. Would be B++ if summoned as a Lancer.
Riding: C+
One can flawlessly manage beasts and vehicles if they have received the proper training and adjustments. Most vehicles and animals can be handled with above-average skill. However, cannot ride the likes of Phantasmal Species such as Monstrous Beasts. Percival’s “+” in this Skill is due to him being an excellent jouster, once even able to match Lancelot while on horseback.
Personal Skills-
Protection of the Holy Grail: A+
As a witness to Galahad's ascension, he holds a deep connection to the Holy Grail, but due to the Saber Saint Graph emphasizing his legends as the original Grail Knight, his Divine protection has increased.
Instinct: C
The ability to instantly identify “the best personal course of action” during combat. Because this Skill allows for the prediction of trajectory, it is possible to avoid attacks from firearms. In the case of Percival, it only activates when fighting in defense of others.
Charisma: C
A composite Skill consisting of a person's charm as well as the natural talent to command or unify an army or country. Increases the ability of allies during group battles. Percival is the purest Knight of the Round Table and is naturally very likeable and pulls people closer together as groups.
Noble Phantasm-
The Grail Sword: Sacred Sword that shall be Reforged
Rank: B+
Anti-Fortress
A magnificent sacred sword owned by Percival with a hilt made of ruby forged by the smith Trebuchet and said to have had the power to lay the country of Logres to waste. It is a Noble Phantasm that operates by its legend where it snapped in half and had to be reforged. When using it in battle enough, the blade will eventually snap off and cause a large amount of damage as a Broken Phantasm. It requires a large amount of Magic Energy from Percival and his Master to restore the sword back together, but should it be done, True Name Release will become available and its power as an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm can be revealed.
Arimathea’s Guard: Shield of the Burial Saint
Rank: C+
Anti-Evil
A Holy Shield owned by Percival delivered to King Arthur’s Castle that once belong to Saint Joseph of Arimathea. It is an obscure armament found only in one legend that Percival used against the demonic Knight of the Burning Dragon. The demonic Knight used a shield of fire possessed by the Devil but the holiness of the Shield of Arimathea protected Percival and brought him victory. This Noble Phantasm has no True Name Release but naturally protects Percival and his allies minds and souls from corrosion and evil and can repel projectile and energy attacks less than a Noble Phantasm back at their users. If the enemy is of the Evil alignment, their repelled attacks will do greater damage against them.
Motives and attitude towards the Master-
Percival possessing the Saint Graph of a Saber, with armaments and abilities existing in a legend that conflicts with the legend of him obtaining the Holy Spear of Longinus. The truth is that the story of him obtaining the Spear of Longinus was indeed the reality of his life, but the Saber Saint Graph he now possesses is built on a few of his fictitious tales. That being said, Percival still has many of the same personality traits that he does as a Lancer, except he can be a bit sterner and on guard, but he is still the same big brother of the Round Table we all know and love.
lines for other Servants-
Percival (Lancer): “Ah so a version of myself close to how I was when I was alive is here? I’m of course familiar with that spear but I bet he has some questions about the sword and shield I have with me.”
Artoria: “Our King of Knights! I never imagined I would reunite with you once again... On top of that, we are now fellow Servants serving under the same Master. What strange coincidence! By the way, my King, have you...lost some weight? Oh no no no. This will not do! Allow your Percival to offer you a large serving of meat and root vegetables!”
Bedivere: “Loyal Knight Bedivere It has been a while but you seem a bit different. From another world another time you say? I’m not so different as I’m in possession of power that differs from the main course of history.”
Gawain: “Sir Gawain! (Phew) Remarkable. We generated immense impact just from gently bumping our fists together. That's Sir Gawain for you. What? My Sword? Yeah it is a mystery but apparently the human order records its existence, so I guess I’ll make due.”
Gareth: “Gareth. You are still thin as a stick. You must eat more. Come on, eat up... Gareth. Why are you running away? Gareth!!!”
Lancelot: “Sir Lancelot. My friend, whom I have crossed blades with at times and went out on expeditions together. There was never a time when I forgot about you. I never thought I would be able to see you once again. Would you be up for a bit of sparring? I’d like to get used to this new sword.”
Proto Arthur: “My king from another world, I can’t explain why but I feel I could speak more crass with him, hmm…”
submitted by Armorwing01 to grandorder [link] [comments]
Real Name: Percival, Perceval
Class: Saber
Gender: Male
Source: Arthurian Legend, Perceval
Region: Britain
Alignment: Lawful Good
Height: 195cm
Weight: 110kg
Parameters-
Strength: B+
Endurance: B
Agility: C
Mana: D
Luck: B
NP: B+
Class Skills-
Magic Resistance: C
Cancel spells with a chant below two verses. Cannot defend against magecraft on the level of greater magecraft and Greater Rituals. Would be B++ if summoned as a Lancer.
Riding: C+
One can flawlessly manage beasts and vehicles if they have received the proper training and adjustments. Most vehicles and animals can be handled with above-average skill. However, cannot ride the likes of Phantasmal Species such as Monstrous Beasts. Percival’s “+” in this Skill is due to him being an excellent jouster, once even able to match Lancelot while on horseback.
Personal Skills-
Protection of the Holy Grail: A+
As a witness to Galahad's ascension, he holds a deep connection to the Holy Grail, but due to the Saber Saint Graph emphasizing his legends as the original Grail Knight, his Divine protection has increased.
Instinct: C
The ability to instantly identify “the best personal course of action” during combat. Because this Skill allows for the prediction of trajectory, it is possible to avoid attacks from firearms. In the case of Percival, it only activates when fighting in defense of others.
Charisma: C
A composite Skill consisting of a person's charm as well as the natural talent to command or unify an army or country. Increases the ability of allies during group battles. Percival is the purest Knight of the Round Table and is naturally very likeable and pulls people closer together as groups.
Noble Phantasm-
The Grail Sword: Sacred Sword that shall be Reforged
Rank: B+
Anti-Fortress
A magnificent sacred sword owned by Percival with a hilt made of ruby forged by the smith Trebuchet and said to have had the power to lay the country of Logres to waste. It is a Noble Phantasm that operates by its legend where it snapped in half and had to be reforged. When using it in battle enough, the blade will eventually snap off and cause a large amount of damage as a Broken Phantasm. It requires a large amount of Magic Energy from Percival and his Master to restore the sword back together, but should it be done, True Name Release will become available and its power as an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm can be revealed.
Arimathea’s Guard: Shield of the Burial Saint
Rank: C+
Anti-Evil
A Holy Shield owned by Percival delivered to King Arthur’s Castle that once belong to Saint Joseph of Arimathea. It is an obscure armament found only in one legend that Percival used against the demonic Knight of the Burning Dragon. The demonic Knight used a shield of fire possessed by the Devil but the holiness of the Shield of Arimathea protected Percival and brought him victory. This Noble Phantasm has no True Name Release but naturally protects Percival and his allies minds and souls from corrosion and evil and can repel projectile and energy attacks less than a Noble Phantasm back at their users. If the enemy is of the Evil alignment, their repelled attacks will do greater damage against them.
Motives and attitude towards the Master-
Percival possessing the Saint Graph of a Saber, with armaments and abilities existing in a legend that conflicts with the legend of him obtaining the Holy Spear of Longinus. The truth is that the story of him obtaining the Spear of Longinus was indeed the reality of his life, but the Saber Saint Graph he now possesses is built on a few of his fictitious tales. That being said, Percival still has many of the same personality traits that he does as a Lancer, except he can be a bit sterner and on guard, but he is still the same big brother of the Round Table we all know and love.
lines for other Servants-
Percival (Lancer): “Ah so a version of myself close to how I was when I was alive is here? I’m of course familiar with that spear but I bet he has some questions about the sword and shield I have with me.”
Artoria: “Our King of Knights! I never imagined I would reunite with you once again... On top of that, we are now fellow Servants serving under the same Master. What strange coincidence! By the way, my King, have you...lost some weight? Oh no no no. This will not do! Allow your Percival to offer you a large serving of meat and root vegetables!”
Bedivere: “Loyal Knight Bedivere It has been a while but you seem a bit different. From another world another time you say? I’m not so different as I’m in possession of power that differs from the main course of history.”
Gawain: “Sir Gawain! (Phew) Remarkable. We generated immense impact just from gently bumping our fists together. That's Sir Gawain for you. What? My Sword? Yeah it is a mystery but apparently the human order records its existence, so I guess I’ll make due.”
Gareth: “Gareth. You are still thin as a stick. You must eat more. Come on, eat up... Gareth. Why are you running away? Gareth!!!”
Lancelot: “Sir Lancelot. My friend, whom I have crossed blades with at times and went out on expeditions together. There was never a time when I forgot about you. I never thought I would be able to see you once again. Would you be up for a bit of sparring? I’d like to get used to this new sword.”
Proto Arthur: “My king from another world, I can’t explain why but I feel I could speak more crass with him, hmm…”