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Dead

Reader mode
doomlord9 said:
Personally I consider that a bad end. Now we have to deal with a completely useless deadweight of what used to be Emma but isn't anymore yet Taylor will react to emotionally like she is.

Also I had a pretty good feeling something like that would happen with Gremthaxel. We use a stone explicitly designed to disguise what it does, feel it tightening around our mind, then the effect vanishes after not doing anything as the con-man distracts us with a funny dance? Yeah I don't think so. At least I talked us down from swearing ourselves into his service and making it all worse.

This just makes me more likely to actually use my unformed vote to the next time we sleep to meditate and look at our mind and soul closely, then use our magic to effectively sand-blast our mind and soul, then look for the anomalies that didn't show up before. Yeah it'll sting like a bitch but most things like that are fairly delicate and would show up after we do small bits of recoverable damage to pretty much everything.

I'll be quite honest, I'm almost thinking about making a vote to kidnap and Charm Amy again just so that we can make her change our brain to prevent us from ever being able to go unconscious ever again. Might have her figure out a way to alter our brain to archive memories while we're awake and recover mental fatigue as well, but the important thing is us never going to sleep again and having the option to make such stupid move like going to the Song of Lies, a place that explicitly is NOT what it appears to be, then walking into a calm idyllic meadow with a jolly bumbling inept man who is labeled 'the Betrayer', then believing everything he says at face value and playing games with him.

I would have been more trusting if we had walked into a twisted firey hellscape with the souls of his other trapped victims wailing at us to stop listening and walk away, which is what it probably is, than what we actually got. At least then it would be anything but a twisted firey hellscape with the souls of his other trapped victims wailing at us to stop listening and walk away....which still leaves plenty of other options for being utterly screwed but it would remove at least one.
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You do realize that one of the main themes of this quest is to make the questers suffer right? Everytime we succeed at something, we fail elsewhere. Usually because our character does something unforseen and unwanted. I don't think any plan any of us could make would fix that. It seems to be one of Flabbyknight's preferred methods for maintaining narrative tension.
 
Flabbyknight said:
"We need you to make a report." says the glowy line lady.

"I killed everything that got in my way and ended the problem. There you go." you say before walking off.
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It is now one of my life goals to use this line IRL.
Flabbyknight said:
You sigh to yourself as you examine her. "Looks like you got quite the mess on your hands."

You let out a shriek of surprise and fall over as you twist around to see Gremthaxel the Betrayer gives you little wave with a grin and says "Hey."
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Remember all those Elder God vibes I was talking about? The ones that were screaming when he said he'd survive the heat-death of the universe... Yea, I'm pretty sure we need to brush up on our Lovecraft before dealing with him...:p
Dromeosaur said:
Well, visiting him was a bad idea. Hindsight and all that.
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I was against going there from the start, sad thing is if I'm remembering right... We still came out ahead compared to where the vote almost took us. We DO NOT go to the songs dealing with blood...ever. (btw Flabbyknight, you should probably put up another non-blood, non-sheep related song soon, we're almost out of -- and I hesitate to use this word -- sane options)
 
Honestly I wasn't expecting us saving Emma.

Hmm not sure how I feel about that.

I'm not opposed to the idea in general but I'll have to wait and see how its handled.


I do have to admit that a lot of the bad stuff has been our fault.
 
The point of this game isn't to win, it's to keep playing as long as possible. There are no options that don't result in a cost, and we have little way of guessing that cost beforehand, so make your choices such that the benefit fixes an old problem, and deal with the new problem as it comes.
 
So...yeah. I was thinking about this further at work and...yeah, we fucked up and we fucked up BAD by not killing Emma.

We arranged a whole anti-Nilbog task force, talked up about how bad this would be if it wasn't stopped, lead the assault, then went off on our own, said we ended the problem, and then snuck the husk of the culprit back to our base to nurse it back to health?

We couldn't have handed the PRT a better 'declare me an insane S-class threat and give me a Kill Order' button unless we started summoning xenomorphs. Not a single person is going to accept "She was evil but I killed the source of her power so now it's ok!" before ignoring it as another factor of our insanity and going back to trying to kill us.

Likely end results I am seeing from that choice?

Lisa is gone as soon as she can run from the base without breaking her legs from the fall, maybe even accepting a few broken bones in order to get out ASAP. She sure as hell has no reason to stay, she doesn't even really like us and we've done exactly nothing to attempt to befriend her and everything to drive her away. She even did us a favor when we asked for her help and in thanks we promptly covered her in vomit multiple times. No way in hell is she going to stay and risk being within the splash range of the fallout that will come when it inevitably comes out that we kept the Bee Shaman alive.

Brian might risk take the risk of having Aisha be absolutely pissed at him by knocking her out and carrying her out as well if Lisa tells him about that little fact before she runs.

Alec might also leave, something like that is going to draw far too much negative attention in his general direction and it might overcome any money we could offer.

Taylor is actually even worse off now than she was before. The gangrenous festering wound on her psyche that is Emma is now even worse because she'll have to care and look after the empty husk of what was once her sister and is now a mass murderer in addition to the one who tortured Taylor into becoming Necros. She can't even get any answers because Emma's mind is effectively shattered.

It's getting to the point that I'm about to just vote like Taylor herself is dead and subsumed into the collective that is Necros, it isn't like there is all that much of a difference in the way the two act and think with how the voters ignore that when Necros is asleep we're supposed to be Taylor, you know the incredibly untrusting and suspicious girl who has been neglected by everyone in power while she is tortured using her deepest secrets used against her by the person she trusted the most. Anyone remember that girl? Because that's not who we have here when we're playing around in the soulscape. I don't even think that accomplishing what is tentatively our goal, that is to acquire some booze so that we can become ourself again, is even going to make a single bit of difference except for actually remembering some of the things people are talking about.

This is why I said that strong uncontrolled emotions make you stupid. This is the single biggest fuckup we have done, and I am counting it against the eating the weird fruit without even bothering to question if listening to the disembodied voice was a good idea.

This isn't a shonen, we aren't Naruto and us screaming loud enough that we're going to save Sasuke Emma isn't going to make people ignore her crimes or forgive her for some asinine reason. Actions have consequences and we have now decided to take the consequences of her actions onto ourselves by placing her into our care.

It might even get worse. Promptly after we are alone with the lobotomized husk of our greatest betrayer, Gremthaxel the Betrayer shows up when he shouldn't even be able to. We might have just given him a free body that could even be empowered by the acts of betrayal she has done against us if his title is actually a position he can be empowered by.

Then we get to have to fun of explaining that we decided to sneak away with the husk of the Bee shaman in hopes of nursing it back to health so it could be our friend again, but it got possessed again and we need some help stopping it from causing more damage because the being possessing it installed a trojan into our soul while we were asleep the night before.

*edit*
Forgot to respond to this.
subsider34 said:
You do realize that one of the main themes of this quest is to make the questers suffer right? Everytime we succeed at something, we fail elsewhere. Usually because our character does something unforseen and unwanted. I don't think any plan any of us could make would fix that. It seems to be one of Flabbyknight's preferred methods for maintaining narrative tension.
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The main problem is that most of the things are NOT unforseen. Several are obvious if anyone bothered to think about it, and some weren't even hidden at all*coughevilswordsough*.

Really I think we need to try to find and remove the curse of stupidity/gullability we seem to be infected by, making it so that either the stupid options flat out can't be voted for or votes in that direction are just outright ignored.

*edit 2*
And It gets even worse. What we did was essentially betray the S-Class Truce that everyone there agreed to. Once it is discovered what we have done, there will be exactly zero trust for us from absolutely everyone, even people who have never met us before.

Gremthaxel might simply be here to congratulate us on the epic betrayal of the trust given to us be the gathered capes and the city in general.

That is also another thing that boggled my mind while we were in the Song of Lies. He was not trying to teach us the art of deception, he specifically said 'treachery and betrayal'. Funny thing about that, you can only betray those who trust you, such as Aisha, Danny, Oni Lee, Squealer, the Merchants depending on us to help them recover.

He wasn't even subtle about it and we just smiled and walked right into it like a world class sucker.
 
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doomlord9 said:
Not a single person is going to accept "She was evil but I killed the source of her power so now it's ok!" before ignoring it as another factor of our insanity and going back to trying to kill us.
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Except Cauldron, who does everything in it's powers to recruit her.
 
Honestly, I was expecting pity to lead into a mercy kill. A final farewell to the bitch that used to be like a sister to us if you will.

edale said:
Except Cauldron, who does everything in it's powers to recruit her.
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Probably not since Emma is kinda a useless sack of meat right now.

doomlord9 said:
And It gets even worse. What we did was essentially betray the S-Class Truce that everyone there agreed to. Once it is discovered what we have done, there will be exactly zero trust for us from absolutely everyone, even people who have never met us before.
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That's a big if. Plus we didn't betray the truce actually.

We killed the target that was making people their mindslaves and saved her victim.

This honestly isn't as bad as your making it out to be.

doomlord9 said:
It's getting to the point that I'm about to just vote like Taylor herself is dead and subsumed into the collective that is Necros, it isn't like there is all that much of a difference in the way the two act and think with how the voters ignore that when Necros is asleep we're supposed to be Taylor, you know the incredibly untrusting and suspicious girl who has been neglected by everyone in power while she is tortured using her deepest secrets used against her by the person she trusted the most.
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Taylor was dead the moment we learned magic from Rana and had our soul tampered with. Taylor also died the moment when she ate something given to her by a prisoner and became a fairy. Taylor has been fucked over because that cat that is the warden never seems to show up ever to give us information about the place and so we rush into things blindly, filled with hope of shiny things. The warnings on how dangerous the people in the prison are go right through our heads.

Taylor is still there though. At Necro's core she is still Taylor. But she has been broken and damaged.
 
-blinks-

Well.... honestly rock paper scissors probably doesn't work to well in a written format.

Also it seems that the elder god thing is just bored.
 
No.

Don't be fooled. What he's describing here is a complete reset to a previous time for Emma. Which means that she won't remember what she did, and will sing the Song of Awakening again the first chance she gets.

The only way to win is not to play the game.

[X] No
 
[x] Yes
[x]Paper
Your paper sword cuts rocks and scissors :p
 
[X] No

Have we not yet learned not to bargain with the being far more tricky than we are? Those terms are absolutely horrible, he doesn't state how far back he'll reverse her mindset for one. It could be anywhere from just seconds before she contacted the queen to back when she was 3 years old.

He also wants the sword, which is something that happens to be soulbound to us and thus would give him a hook into our soul.

Do NOT make bargains of any sort with him, do not agree to ANY deals. He goes away and every time he shows up we make him go away again until we can figure out a way to wall off that entire section of the prison.
 
OverReactionGuy said:
That's a big if. Plus we didn't betray the truce actually.

We killed the target that was making people their mindslaves and saved her victim.

This honestly isn't as bad as your making it out to be.
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And not a single person is going to believe that this is the case. Emma was the one doing it and Emma is the one we saved, all our talk of spirits is going to be ignored as us being insane until magic becomes widespread enough that they might accept that we could possibly have told the truth on that.

Not that it would matter because reversing a verdict like that would make the PRT look bad so even if they did discover the truth they would bury it as far as they can.

Which is why I really want this guy to go away so that we can get around to scouring our mind and soul to find anything he hid in there and remove it before he infects us further.

Really if there is even a scrap of Taylor left she should be heading towards a being enraged by this. Betrayal is one of the things she hates the most out of absolutely everything that exists. Yeah he keeps them small for now so that she'll let her guard down but this is supposed to be Taylor doing it so she shouldn't even know how to let her guard down at all, much less towards someone who is up front that he is looking to betray us in any way he can.
 
doomlord9 said:
And not a single person is going to believe that this is the case. Emma was the one doing it and Emma is the one we saved, all our talk of spirits is going to be ignored as us being insane until magic becomes widespread enough that they might accept that we could possibly have told the truth on that.

Not that it would matter because reversing a verdict like that would make the PRT look bad so even if they did discover the truth they would bury it as far as they can.

Which is why I really want this guy to go away so that we can get around to scouring our mind and soul to find anything he hid in there and remove it before he infects us further.

Really if there is even a scrap of Taylor left she should be heading towards a being enraged by this. Betrayal is one of the things she hates the most out of absolutely everything that exists. Yeah he keeps them small for now so that she'll let her guard down but this is supposed to be Taylor doing it so she shouldn't even know how to let her guard down at all, much less towards someone who is up front that he is looking to betray us in any way he can.
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But she didn't betray anyone. She did her job, she stopped the threat just like she was supposed to. So what if Emma is still alive. Emma is powerless and neutralized.

If the PRT find out that Emma is still alive, they will figure out that Necros killed the source of her powers. Which would make Necros even more dangerous on the scale because if she could kill Emma's source of powers, then she could possibly depower other parahumans as well.

That is what the PRT would believe if they ever catch wind of Emma. That and for some reason we wanted a trophy of our victory so we kept the unresponsive body of our enemy to have a life size dress up doll.

Why would Taylor be angry at this situation anyway? We made Taylor pity Emma.
 
[X] Yes
-[X] Round 1: Paper
-[X] Round 2: Scissors
-[X] Round 3: Paper
GiftofLove said:
Don't be fooled. What he's describing here is a complete reset to a previous time for Emma. Which means that she won't remember what she did, and will sing the Song of Awakening again the first chance she gets.
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Good point about the time-frame of the reset. On the flip side, even being de-aged to 3 days old would still be an improvement over Emma's current state.

Also, even if Emma sings the Song of Awakening again... The Queen Bee's dead, so if something else does respond, it'll be something different (and if she's de-aged to before the fallout with Taylor... she might actually get something more heroic as a patron); that said, the other two mystery choices from the vote WAAAAAY back when, where we picked Bees for Emma's powers... Well, those were equally bad...

Only one in 1000 or so (if I remember the figures right) people who sung the Song of Awakening gained powers, so there is a chance nothing will respond to her if she sings it again...
doomlord9 said:
He also wants the sword, which is something that happens to be soulbound to us and thus would give him a hook into our soul.
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There is the chance the soul-bond will transfer to Gremthaxel when he gains ownership of it, soul-bound weapons work like that in many universes (unless you actually place a chunk of your soul in the weapon... usually it's the weapon placing a piece of itself in the user); I'm not sure how that works in Shadowrun though...

Also, the thing about Betrayal is... You have to gain a person's trust first. Saying "I'm going to betray you," then doing it immediately... isn't a betrayal at all. As Gremthaxel said, the greatest betrayal is a betrayal of expectations, and we expect him to betray us... for now. Once we forget that, even for a moment... Then the betrayal happens.

--------

Also odd trick for rock-paper-scissors, but I can tell you from years of using it that it works.

Right before you do RPS, ask your opponent: "Without looking, what color is your shirt?"

Wait for them to answer, then play your round of RPS.

95% of the time your opponent will pick scissors; so pick rock and you'll win.

Not sure why it works, something about how the human mind thinks, but it does. It's the same kind of thought-implanting technique mentalists use.

Note, this trick does NOT work if your opponent knows about it (though you can get them again a few weeks later if they don't remember the trick).
 
[X] No
The prise is more harm than good, and sword is too awesome to loose. Besides, no talking to Ctulhu's elder brother.
 
Silver W. King said:
I have but come on! You can only fall for the obvious trap so may times...right?
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Necros looks intently at the two buttons on the panel before her. She's deep in the bowels of the PRT building, and seems to have wandered into one of the Tinker labs. Hollow Man and Transporter are encased in an energy field behind her.

She looks intently at the first button; it's green, and very clearly labeled: "Isolation Field Shutoff."

She passes her gaze over to the second button; it's red, and very clearly labeled: "Disintegration, ONLY for the disposal of hazardous materials."

Necros thinks deeply. There's no way the nefarious evildoers who captured her friends would make breaking them out so easy... A trap! it must be! They must have mislabeled the buttons intentionally, in order to confuse the heroes! Well, there's no way SHE'S falling for their nefarious plot!

Necros looks back at Hollow Man and Transporter and said, "Don't worry, I'll have you out of there in a jiffy!"

She turned back around, and her hand approached one of the buttons...

------

Seemed like a good place to end it.:p
 
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