With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Chojin Patriarch · 2026-01-22T06:53:01+0000

Mr Zoat said:
18th August 2013
10:19 GMT -5

The four of us appear on the border of the Greyhound Duchy, not… Actually all that far to the north west of our former position. An abbey, burned down during the war and as yet not part of the reconstruction process. A curious choice; I know from the intro sequence that demons here have no difficulty in entering holy sites, but by that token there's no obvious advantage in performing the ritual here. Sareth's horse starts, but I turned my rings' human-to-animal translator back on to warn him before we moved so he swiftly calms down when his rider shows no concern. Xana's demonic steed has presumably been through far worse.

A detail many wouldn't think of, concerning the horse. Too often fantasy novels treat horses as living motor vehicles, never taking into account things like exhaustion or fear responses...

Xana looks at me expectantly. "Well?"

I point to the broken stone pathway leading to the nearest road. Neither appear to have been deliberately destroyed -demons need roads too- but there was a battle here, and the land is blotted with blast craters from offensive magic and trebuchet projectiles.

To be fair, if they've never been here before, they wouldn't recognise the surroundings... And even if they have, it still takes a second to adjust to the sudden shift.

"There?"

"Yes."

One road in not-Europe probably looks much the same as any other. Especially after a war.

Cart design is easy enough. I've seen this sort on Themyscira plenty of times. The tires I can base on the dozens of motorcycle tires I've scanned. Sacks, Themyscira again, gold… Is gold, jewels… I've got their molecular structures stored. Ah… Neither of their horses have harnesses, so include those…

Good catch. Riding harness is very different to hauling harness.

"Shouldn't matter, but the gold and jewels will have an unusually regular structure. No impurities. But I doubt that anyone will notice."

Xana guides her horse over to the cart while Sareth dismounts and walks towards… It looks like an altar, partially concealed by a pile of rubble. He kneels before it, hands clasped at his chest.

Didn't take him for a pious man. I guess the Empire expects a certain amount of devotion, though.

"You worship Elrath?"

"No. But I suspect that my mother's people will expect it."

And the god may find it amusing for a half-demon to be beseeching him.

"I would recommend not lying to gods. They can be remarkably short-tempered."

"I'm not lying. I genuinely do hope that Elrath accepts the soul of your other self."

So they definitely met before. And not as enemies, unless he's very compassionate about his foes.

"You were friends?"

He thinks, then nods slowly. "He gave me counsel at a difficult point in my life."

Huh. Well, never underestimate a few kind words at the right moment, after all.

Xana glances over from where she's rifling through the sacks, looking decidedly unimpressed. "Surely it wasn't that difficult, my love? Still, it was good advice."

I raise my eyebrows. "'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'?"

I suppose that's the same advice OL would have given if he were in that position.

Xana nods. "That was the core of it. Decide what you want to happen, and then make it happen."

"Xana, you hate Leanna."

The problem with that plan usually comes in when what you want conflicts with what others want.

"She made an excellent distraction. And you were thinking about releasing your father."

"I wanted a place in the world." He stares off into the distance, to where I can just about make out one of the Duchy's towns. "But I think that I'll prefer finding it in a world that isn't on fire."

Yeah, a burning cinder doesn't generally have much to offer.

"You-?" Lushun stares at him, shadows moving around his fingertips. "You are the Dark Messiah Sar-Shazzar wrote of. I seem to remember that prophecy being fairly unambiguous."

Sareth doesn't appear to have noticed Lushun preparing a spell, but from the tension in her wings and lengthening of her talons I see that Xana has. Lushun's eyes move to me and I give my head a small shake to try and discourage him.

Classic 'Son... Just don't.' moment. I half imagine OL also giving him the Tommy Lee Jones look, though it might lose some of the impact without the newspaper.

"If the prophecy was unambiguous, then why did Arantir waste his time in trying to kill me?" He shakes his head, then strolls through the ruined wall into the main courtyard. "If both of them truly come from outside of Ashan, perhaps he could not see them. In any case, the barrier around Sheogh is made whole, though not so perfect as it would have been had Arantir been able to murder an entire city to fuel his ritual."

Sometimes trying to fight a prophecy just leads to it being fulfilled. ironically because the person fighting it isn't operating with all the information needed to. Like Oedipus.

"I see." Lushun dismisses his spell, but still regards Sareth cautiously as we follow him inside. "Excuse me if I take the time to confirm that for myself."

"Be my guest. And if you encounter Arantir's shade, banish it for me."

Somehow I think doing that would greatly improve the future of the world considerably.

"You left Leanna in Har-Heresh?"

"Xana's hatred is mutual, but… I like Leanna. She has an army and a fortress, and she has a portal to flee if she needs to."

Ah, bit of a love triangle going on, and Xana is a fan of the 'murder the hypotenuse' method for resolving them?

"I just thought that you might be trying to pull a Kiril."

He raises his eyebrows. "Kiril? I'm not familiar with the name."

I'm sure there's a history book with the details somewhere.

"Younger son of House Griffin during the War of the Second Eclipse. He was tricked into becoming a demon, and ended up in a long term relationship with a Fallen Angel named Sarah and… A succubus whose name I've forgotten."

Xana glares at me. "You don't need to pretend. There's more than one succubus with the name 'Xana'. I never even met him." She snorts. "Sharing with an angel. She's an embarrassment to succubae everywhere."

~~Or she could have been playing the 'corrupt the angel' angle~~? Edit:

Oh, the angel was already corrupted. Guess she was fine playing equal partner, then...

Sareth shakes his head. "That wouldn't be an option. I doubt that Leanna would ever fall. On the other hand, I'm not a demon."

"Your… Father..?"

Presumably his demonic blood runs very thin for reasons.

"I had wondered if his intent was to leave me as weak as possible until after he was freed. Perhaps even then. Certainly, I never benefited from having demon blood in me."

Xana coughs loudly.

Although I suspect the events of the Dark messiah game helped him gain quite a bit of power, just not purely demonic. then again, I don't know if the game had a levelling system or anything.

"I apologise. His demon blood. Your demon magic was extremely important." She momentarily seems mollified, then he smiles impishly. "Though I must admit that I would like to hear more about this 'Kiril'."

Lushun steps closer to him. "I believe that we have met your requirements?"

Alas, the amusing discourse will have to wait.

"Yes." Sareth nods and takes the Staff of the Netherworld from his back. He regards the skull set into the head for a moment, and then holds it out towards Lushun.

Lushun takes it from him and holds it before himself, going into a slight trance. I assume that he's making sure that it will work as intended. "Yes. Yes." He blinks. "This will work excellently. And the rest?"

You could assume that. I'd still be wary of any sort of betrayal once he thinks he can take you.

Sareth passes him the Ring of the Unrepentant, which he slips onto his left ring finger. The Amulet of Necromancy, which he hangs around his neck. And lastly the Cloak of Death's Shadow, which he pulls over his robes.

And wait for betrayal in three…

There we go! Trust but verify. And I doubt the best magical defences can hold up to Destruction Pulses for long...

"Right." He takes the staff in both hands. "Shall we begin?"

Two…

Also the option of any number of construct energy weapons they've likely never imagined...

"Opening a portal to the void… Takes a good deal of energy, but with this staff it is not complicated." Purple mists swirl around the head of the staff, and then flow out to form a vertical disc in the air. "Surviving passage to Ashan's exterior is difficult… You had best shield yourself."

It's not going to be that easy, is it?

I nod, strengthening my environmental shield as purple mist flows over his robes and is… Drawn into them.

"And lastly, we need some way to track your companions. Without one, all I could try tracing your entry and following your path back to your home-."

Good, not forgetting them at all. If they're even here anyway. For all we know, the whatever-it-was that brought OL here missed them.

"Oh, that's easy. I imbued Mazikeen with a small amount of orange light before we left." I generate a mote of orange light and have it float over to him. "Can you trace that?"

"I don't know." His eyes narrow as the purple mist envelopes it. "I think… I… Yes. Yes, I can!" He turns to me, smiling broadly. "Are you ready?"

~~Presumably done offscreen between the summoning and Angelica levelling the cabin~~. Edit: Oh, right, the whole face-fixing discussion...

No betrayal? Or maybe he's leaving it to later. Either way…

"Yes, I am. Let's not leave them hanging in the wind any longer."

Or languishing in some mystical jail cell somewhere.

Well, hopefully he can bring Angelika and Mazikeen here promptly and then get them gone before their poking gets noticed by something far more powerful than they'd like to deal with. Assuming this is even a real dimension and not some illusion... Although forging a connection back to the DC Multiverse could make their creator goddess interested.

Duke Long · 2026-01-22T08:01:18+0000

Mr Zoat said:
"And lastly, we need some way to track your companions. Without one, all I could try tracing your entry and following your path back to your home-."

'try is'?

Chojin Patriarch said:
Presumably done offscreen between the summoning and Angelica levelling the cabin.

I think it refers to him making a construct of the damaged part of her face.

Mr Zoat · 2026-01-22T08:25:36+0000

CrazyNoVa said:
*Shudders at the thought of a version of Paul who ended up in Bloodborne*

I don't know Bloodborne well, but given the lack of a soul-.

Wait. Doesn't the entirety of Bloodborne take place in a dream or something? In that case, he might just walk into whatever real Yharnam looks like, find out that they can't help him with the whole soul thing, and then leave.

Idkusername · 2026-01-22T08:36:21+0000

Mr Zoat said:
I don't know Bloodborne well, but given the lack of a soul-.

Wait. Doesn't the entirety of Bloodborne take place in a dream or something? In that case, he might just walk into whatever real Yharnam looks like, find out that they can't help him with the whole soul thing, and then leave.

The Dream is intertwined with the real world, with dreams being the method through which or the consequence of Great Ones interacting with/intruding into the mortal world. Paul would still have to deal with beasts and murderous townspeople, and the eldritch madness-inducing secrets of the town just to start with.

Mr Zoat · 2026-01-22T08:43:07+0000

Chojin Patriarch said:
Somehow I think doing that would greatly improve the future of the world considerably.

Canonically? It would have been better if he'd won. Hard to say if it would be in this story. Stonehelm is a large medieval town, but perfecting the barrier and locking down Sheogg permanently would save a lot of people in the long run. Plus, there were a lot of demon cultists in Stonehelm.

Or she could have been playing the 'corrupt the angel' angle?

She didn't corrupt the angel. The angel corrupted herself to try and save the world, something that actually worked. She was the least shitty angel character in ithe story, if only because she expressed remorse about fucking up Kiril's life and fucked up her own at the same time.

Presumably his demonic blood runs very thin for reasons.

Because they don't want your character to be OP from the start. It does kind of suck that literally all the demonic power you get is given to you by Xana, though.

Presumably done offscreen between the summoning and Angelica levelling the cabin.

No, it was when he was talking about repairing her face. I did mention it.

Idkusername said:
The Dream is intertwined with the real world, with dreams being the method through which or the consequence of Great Ones interacting with/intruding into the mortal world. Paul would still have to deal with beasts and murderous townspeople, and the eldritch madness-inducing secrets of the town just to start with.

Or he could just avoid the weird town filled with monsters entirely. The main character of the game goes there because they're sick.

boo600 · 2026-01-22T08:47:01+0000

CrazyNoVa said:
Well, look on the plus side: Sure, this world's version of Paul might be dead, but there are worse fates that could have happened to him.

*Shudders at the thought of a version of Paul who ended up in Bloodborne*

…I'd actually love to be isekai'd to Bloodborne, stupidly enough. Yes, it sucks and it's horrible, but at least I'd get to explore Yharnam without paying 600+ dollars for a PlayStation 4.

Mquz · 2026-01-22T09:19:42+0000

From what I understand while Yharnham is unique in some ways, it's only ONE of the epicenters of the weirdness - they left the potential for a sequel open, since the beast plague is functional outside the city

CTrees · 2026-01-22T11:06:52+0000

boo600 said:
at least I'd get to explore Yharnam without paying 600+ dollars for a PlayStation 4.

$600+? My local used game store has PS4's as low as $135, depending on storage/edition. Even gamestop looks like $150-200 online. Might be worth checking again? Granted this US, so other countries may change things.

BrotherofaStudio · 2026-01-22T12:59:52+0000

I'm guessing that the dead Paul was an alternate who wound up in Ashan? I'd love to hear or see his adventures and how he advised Sareth. Maybe he could be resurrected as a Necropolis hero?

Mr Zoat · 2026-01-22T13:13:46+0000

Mr Zoat said:
Jack blushes slightly, and I decide to spare him further embarrassment. "We could have one built for Bulkhead, too."

Thank me, corrected.

Steelplaza · 2026-01-22T13:20:20+0000

Mr Zoat said:
No betrayal? Or maybe he's leaving it to later. Either way…

Lushun doesn't seem like a good guy, but he does seem like a sensible guy. He's seen OL make deals and honor them twice in a row now, and he's also seen OL demonstrate a lot of power.

I wonder if he's just made the calculation that the risk/reward ratio on betrayal isn't a good number.

CrazyNoVa · 2026-01-22T13:43:11+0000

Mr Zoat said:
I don't know Bloodborne well, but given the lack of a soul-.

Wait. Doesn't the entirety of Bloodborne take place in a dream or something? In that case, he might just walk into whatever real Yharnam looks like, find out that they can't help him with the whole soul thing, and then leave.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For one thing, the beast plague exists in both dream and reality, so there's a very high chance that Paul may still get infected, and the only cure is through the dream, meaning that Paul would have to go in there. And even if that wasn't the case, Yharnam is the Bloodborne equivalent of the "soft places" from DC Sandman lore, meaning that it's a nexus where both dream and reality overlap at once, so Paul might get dragged into the dream just by being there.

And yes, the monsters and the eldritch stuff are horrible, but that's not what I was talking about. You see, the thing that makes Yharnam so horrible is that if you get ensnared by the dream and become part of the dream Yharnam, you will get trapped there in an eternal cycle of suffering, insanity, death, and respawning. Because you see, unless you're a hunter or some specific exceptions, the Yharnam citizens who are trapped in the dream can't die permanently, and if they get killed (whether by hunters or by each other), they can't go to any form of afterlife. Instead, they eventually respawn to begin the cycle of death and suffering all over again. That's the true horror that awaits the poor, regular folk of Yharnam: You can't age and you can't die, but you're forever sick and you keep dying over and over again. Ironically, in a world where people can't die and everything sucks, death suddenly becomes a whole lot more appealing.

Hell, even the people who become hunters aren't always safe from this: They can't die permanently either unless specific circumstances are met, but they still feel pain, and since this game is a spiritual successor to Dark Souls, you can imagine that they die and respawn a lot too. And spoiler: there are a lot of horrific and painful ways to get killed in this game.

boo600 said:
…I'd actually love to be isekai'd to Bloodborne, stupidly enough. Yes, it sucks and it's horrible, but at least I'd get to explore Yharnam without paying 600+ dollars for a PlayStation 4.

600+ dollars? Where do you live? I didn't have to pay that much for mine.

Mr Zoat · 2026-01-22T14:53:58+0000

CrazyNoVa said:
Unfortunately, it's not that simple. For one thing, the beast plague exists in both dream and reality, so there's a very high chance that Paul may still get infected, and the only cure is through the dream, meaning that Paul would have to go in there. And even if that wasn't the case, Yharnam is the Bloodborne equivalent of the "soft places" from DC Sandman lore, meaning that it's a nexus where both dream and reality overlap at once, so Paul might get dragged into the dream just by being there.

And yes, the monsters and the eldritch stuff are horrible, but that's not what I was talking about. You see, the thing that makes Yharnam so horrible is that if you get ensnared by the dream and become part of the dream Yharnam, you will get trapped there in an eternal cycle of suffering, insanity, death, and respawning. Because you see, unless you're a hunter or some specific exceptions, the Yharnam citizens who are trapped in the dream can't die permanently, and if they get killed (whether by hunters or by each other), they can't go to any form of afterlife. Instead, they eventually respawn to begin the cycle of death and suffering all over again. That's the true horror that awaits the poor, regular folk of Yharnam: You can't age and you can't die, but you're forever sick and you keep dying over and over again. Ironically, in a world where people can't die and everything sucks, death suddenly becomes a whole lot more appealing.

Hell, even the people who become hunters aren't always safe from this: They can't die permanently either unless specific circumstances are met, but they still feel pain, and since this game is a spiritual successor to Dark Souls, you can imagine that they die and respawn a lot too. And spoiler: there are a lot of horrific and painful ways to get killed in this game.

Thank you for that information, but is there a pressing reason to go there if you're not infected?

Ardy · 2026-01-22T16:07:52+0000

Mr Zoat said:
Thank you for that information, but is there a pressing reason to go there if you're not infected?

It's both where the game starts, for what that's worth, and known to have incredible healing powers through the blood, which the transhumanist SI would absolutely be interested in.

CrazyNoVa · 2026-01-22T16:47:05+0000

Mr Zoat said:
Thank you for that information, but is there a pressing reason to go there if you're not infected?

Not unless you seek power or want to end the nightmare once and for all. But the problem here is that for various reasons, it's really easy to get infected in both the dream and in reality. Remember, this is a world that's really similar to victorian England, meaning that both medical and sanitation standards aren't as advanced as in real life (the fact that there's vermin and dead bodies everywhere in the streets certainly doesn't help either).

Not to mention that it's a post-apocalyptic world where civilization has more-or-less broken down, and the monsters are actively hunting down people to kill or infect them, so it's kind of like a zombie apocalypse, except it's also worse because as I mentioned before, they can't die permanently and they keep reviving no matter how many times you kill them. Paul would have to hide from those monsters too to avoid getting infected, because if he gets injured even once, then that's it.

Also, I recall reading in the lore that on top of being really infectious, the plague also seems to have a really long incubation period, because after the magic blood that started this whole mess got distributed, it apparently took quite a while before people started mutating into beasts. Which means that Paul might catch the disease from someone who's infected but doesn't show any symptoms, and then not realize he's infected himself until it's too late. Plus, as I mentioned before, the disease makes you progressively crazier, to the point that by the time some infectees start manifesting physical symptoms, they're too crazy to realize that they're changing. Meaning that by the time Paul starts actually showing symptoms, he might become too insane to even care anymore.

Lastly, just when you think it couldn't possibly get any worse, there's also a memetic hazard component. Sometimes, even the mere act of trying to learn more about the plague (which, due to its supernatural roots, means studying forbidden eldritch knowledge) can also drive you insane or turn you into a monster, because in the world the game takes place in, these are things that man wasn't meant to know, both figuratively and literally. The mere knowledge of the plague's true nature, which the game refers to as insight, can infect you and break your mind if you're a regular person. There's even enemies in the game who use this to their advantage, by filling your head with insight, which gradually builds up and spreads in your mind like a poison until your head literally explodes.

mastermenthe · 2026-01-22T17:38:04+0000

CrazyNoVa said:
, these are things that man wasn't meant to know,

Correction:
The memetic hazard is "the eye is the window", not just to the soul, but to everything.
Learning enough, seeing enough, means you are seen back, and the Great Ones are unendingly "sympathetic".
Anyone they see, by virtue of anyone seeing their runes or spawn or works, the Great Ones will acknowledge your existence by choosing to affect an effect upon you in return for your interaction with them, for sight and resonance are intertwining forms of sympathy.
This is where the kindness of Rom, The Vacuous Spider, is made evident. Rom is the only Great One that chooses to affect non-interference as her effect, and as a result shields those she sees (and those that see Rom) from the sight, and thus the effects, of the other Great Ones.

All of this is irrelevant to Paul, because being incarnated as a soulless human, he is by definition an Albinauric hybrid of a Golem and a Hollow. He's practically immune to all spiritual forces in the same way as an Archdragon until he chooses to change that, or something forcibly attacks and "shatters his vessel" like a plague infected beast claw.

CrazyNoVa · 2026-01-22T18:05:48+0000

mastermenthe said:
Anyone they see, by virtue of anyone seeing their runes or spawn or works, the Great Ones will acknowledge your existence by choosing to affect an effect upon you in return for your interaction with them, for sight and resonance are intertwining forms of sympathy.

That makes it even more qualified to be classified as a memetic hazard. Because they don't just look back from their writings or works, but also from within your own mind. That's how the Frenzy status kills you: by filling your mind with so much eldritch knowledge that your head blows up.

mastermenthe said:
All of this is irrelevant to Paul, because being incarnated as a soulless human, he is by definition an Albinauric hybrid of a Golem and a Hollow. He's practically immune to all spiritual forces in the same way as an Archdragon until he chooses to change that, or something forcibly attacks and "shatters his vessel" like a plague infected beast claw.

No, he isn't. You don't need a soul to get dragged in the nightmare, and the beasts not only exist in both dream and reality, but they are still more than capable of tearing you to shreds with their bare hands if magic doesn't work. Like I said before, the curse isn't very discriminating, and even just being in Yharnam can get you cursed. Just about anything sentient can get caught up in the nightmare, really. And there's even a few nonsentient soulless undead as well, who are just flesh and nothing else.

CTrees · 2026-01-22T18:49:25+0000

Don't power rings feed information directly into the user's brain? If so, even something as normally innocuous as scanning the surroundings to figure out where he was might be enough to give the curse a foothold.

I could absolutely be wrong, of course. My knowledge of Bloodborne is mostly from watching lets plays and reading crossover fanfic; I'm not super well read on the deeper lore.

CrazyNoVa · 2026-01-22T18:58:59+0000

CTrees said:
Don't power rings feed information directly into the user's brain? If so, even something as normally innocuous as scanning the surroundings to figure out where he was might be enough to give the curse a foothold.

I could absolutely be wrong, of course. My knowledge of Bloodborne is mostly from watching lets plays and reading crossover fanfic; I'm not super well read on the deeper lore.

Holy crap, you're right! I didn't even think of that. The mere act of using a ring to scan the environment, or even just one of the infected, might be enough to give someone a few points of insight and drag them deeper into the curse! And it might even attract the attention of the Great Ones too.

Mr Zoat · 2026-01-22T19:00:01+0000

Okay, but exactly how far has that stuff spread? Is it just Yharnam and the surrounding countryside? The whole country? That continent?

CrazyNoVa · 2026-01-22T19:03:11+0000

Mr Zoat said:
Okay, but exactly how far has that stuff spread? Is it just Yharnam and the surrounding countryside? The whole country? That continent?

Might be the whole world, for all we know. I know this because you can go to other places outside of Yharnam (like Hemwick, The Forbidden Woods, Byrgenwerth, Cainhurst or The Chalice Dungeons), and the curse is active there too. It just seems to keep on spreading and spreading.

Edit: Cainhurst especially seems really far, because the environment and climate are really different, and it takes a carriage to get you there, implying that it's quite far from Yharnam.

Neruz · 2026-01-22T19:09:58+0000

Mr Zoat said:
Okay, but exactly how far has that stuff spread? Is it just Yharnam and the surrounding countryside? The whole country? That continent?

We don't get precise details on how far it has spread, just that it has spread and that people are coming from from away to Yharnam looking for a cure.

With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

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