#having like no hp and then its oh i missed on my one attack? well that's my turn then

[deelovesbooks]

man fantasy high is wild as shit 😂 episode 2 and they're already up to shenanigans

[fictionfixations]

penacony spoilers (this will mean nothing to you if you dont know it but like uh. memory zone meme? that one battle.)

what in the fuck thats freaky

ive never seen this fight im not gonna lie (ive seen the story and sunday and aventurine's but nothing else)

so wait does killing that bring him back??

WELCOME BACK YOU MADLAD 😭 how does. temporary.. death?? feel?

i keep forgetting to save skill points for the healer so my characters can ACTUALLY heal my bad

AGAIN?

what is your obsession with this man memory zone meme. like. if it was robin id understand cause thats kinda story-relevant but like...

genuinely so freaky (ive always been targetting the person itself so i dont think ive seen the follow up attack and im kind of scared to)

okay now PLEASE stop being oneshotted

no matter how much i try to build my characters it always feels like they're still that shitty team thats barely built. like. yknow the team for casual hsr players that dont spend that much time grinding cause they're more story-focused or something??

fhuisdhf iwish i had aventurine cause i feel like ive been getting into a really good groove with planning on how i should play with aventurine as like the support character (support as in im taking an aventurine from my friends lol) but also. the one thing that infuriates me is that you just. shields cant heal you. so theres just that chunk missing from the hp bar that cant be fixed until the battle ends and i go to like a space anchor (or use consumables but i forget they even exist)

but theres just something nice about not taking damage at all because the shields are taking it for you. ...but anyway shields or no id probably still get fucked over

(sometimes probably gonna comment and be like 'aCTUALLy you're getting oneshotted because you keep doing [action] when there's a symbol over it so then it triggers [so and so] and im just like. i know. but i play by ignoring the stuff that triggers the enemy to attack so like--)

okay now what am i supposed to do LMFAO (i cant tell if the eye means even if you like use your skill instead it'll trigger because ive been using basic attack when they get oneshotted. so idk maybe it doesnt matter what you do it just chooses the last person's turn basically)

(well i could trigger an ult but. so well hi im future me but if i had any ults they were probably being saved. like natasha's healing everyone ult.)

i want to scream

ended first. uh. round? is that what you call it? then it took out TWO of my team members. was prepared to yell obscenities at it but then cutscene happened so i hoped that that was it

but oh my god YOU TOOK MY HEALER??

actually. kind of off topic. i wonder what happens to aventurine's shields if he dies?? like cause the turns are counted by when it reaches that characters turn again (which no duh that means a whole turn has passed. i just remember it better describing it this way) ..but if no turn does it just. disappear?

OH

anyway 'two characters who act of their own intiative' ... you. bitch.

okay. im. gonna sacrifice robin and ratio. since i can do that i guess. (if i had to rank characters on team of 'absolutely need to keep alive or im actually fucked' then these two would be at the bottom...)

wonder if her ult just disappears if she dies

yeah ult is gone

black swan made it so much easier but oh my god i hated that (and i know im going to hate the future bosses so yayy)

no but its actually really cool to basically have allies turn on you like that. its. really really cool.

i just am not a fan of actually playing against it. im gonna be honest i hate bosses with other enemies around them cause they always end up screwing me over 😭

[ferrocyan]

okay so. tart and estinien. at first their relationship was very normal, in hvw she agreed w estinien's pov on the dragonsong war but decided to put alphinaud at first priority, so they still got along well even w different goals. then in stb when tart's mental state spiraled after zenos' death, it was estinien (and aymeric) that snapped her out of it by rescuing her from elidizenos. so all in all they were friends even if they didn't interact much, and tart was very grateful to estinien for saving her.

now. keep in mind that i watched edw before the end of shb. so i saw that early edw there are things that make the wol as a role less exclusive, right. id heard of the tempering cure, then vrtra gave his scales to protect people from tempering entirely. so the way the wol's role has been defined as the only one who can withstand tempering, that's gone now. okay. so then i got to finish shb, then 5.4 onwards, when estinien started to join the scions. despite them only sharing a couple scenes i think estinien and krile have chemistry, alphinaud clearly adores estinien too, and g'raha idolizes him. right then an evil thought formed in my mind.

i wonder how tart would react to this? tart who defines herself by being the wol and is desperate to belong. who is seeing someone join her group and being welcomed by everyone. someone who is nearly her equal at her most valuable skill. and tart's advantages over him are slowly being eroded, while her detriments are only increasing. oh, tart fucking hates estinien.

it starts as petty jealousy over her favorite people liking estinien so much. then she becomes passive-aggressive at him. estinien thinks it's kinda funny, the hostility just bounces off him. but by the time they reach thavnair, tart snaps at him for the hairtie incident and estinien's like :/ wow ok and avoids interacting w tart more than necessary. he stays away until fandaniel's funny prank.

we all know in from the cold. best part of edw. the aftermath is lacking, though--right now tart has had all her wol privileges stripped from her, while her being targeted specifically by zenos is becoming a huge liability. just look at the mess fandaniel created... tart panics and runs away from camp broken glass.

the scions are alarmed bc what do you mean the wol is missing AGAIN, estinien volunteers to look for tart while everyone else prepares to storm the tower of babil. he finds her easily w the dragoon jumps, and

by the way, you know what stuck out to me when i played this section of edw? before setting out on the previous mission lucia told the wol that hot soup will be waiting for them when they get back. then we got the scene where jullus eats soup and cries about it, then like a glimpse of the wol before they got kidnapped by fandaniel. we never got to eat the soup guys. we never got the soup!!!

so tart never got the soup. she's starving and cold and in pain and has just had the worst dysphoria experience of all time earlier that day and now here stands the motherfucker, the guy poised to take her place as savior of the star effortlessly, confronting her when she's alone and weak. ohhhh it's so obvious what he's doing here. estinien is going to kill her. well not if he dies first

for years since learning the discipline of the warrior tart never let the inner beast take control until right then. she goes berserk and attacks estinien. who is just like, standing there, and suddenly the wol goes stark raving mad and tries to kill him. fortunately for tart he isn't insane, and it's easy to kick the ass of a tank who is at 25% hp and not using any mits or self-heals. so tart gets beaten handily

estinien lets her lay still in the snow for a bit, then sighs. "aibou, sound off if you aren't dead"

and the sound he hears is wailing sobs. bc its over. if the scions didn't intend to get rid of tart before, they surely do now that she's attacked one of their own. estinien picks her up to bring back to camp and tart struggles and begs to be left alone, until he shuts her up by grabbing her tail. tart gets quiet and lets him carry her like a sack of flour after that.

estinien deflects the scions' questions and dumps tart in a room to eat and get checked out by a chirurgeon. he stays to watch that she doesn't run off again. before he leaves, though, tart calls out to him, "i'm sorry."

"i tried to kill you, you tried to kill me. we're even."

"i'm sorry. i've been such a jerk."

"yeah, i really thought we were friends."

"i'm so sorry."

"hmph. get some sleep while you can. we're leaving soon."

and so things end in a.. clean slate. ish. tart treats him better from then on and estinien decides he does like friendship after all. their relationship recovers enough that by the end of edw estinien is the one tart asks to please carry her like a princess off the ragnarok bc she doesn't feel like walking* and he does carry her nicely this time www

and then in 6.1 they're back to teasing each other again! with friendly hostility this time! tart makes fun of estinien for getting ripped off again, then when finding out it's on purpose she's like "what you think that's cool or something? you think that makes you sooo cool? cause it doesn't and you're lame as hell estinien" (says this while doing the /wow emote bc she does find him so cool for this) and then estinien rolls his eyes bc "i told you to bring one guy and you brought four"

"that's 'cause i'm more popular than you! AHAHAHAHA"

"that's not even funny that's just true"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

they're best friends. they're my favorite. i love when i can make tart blow up at someone and make up w them bc without fail that becomes her strongest relationship. tart and estinien are truly aibous now i'm so proud of them

[yggbasilseager]

No Skin: a horror roguelike RPG

I recently came across this game demo and I need to ramble about it because its been consuming my thoughts.

Five teens threw a killer party and jealous eldritch horrors decided to crash it because they didn't invite them. Or maybe you just had too much to drink and are hallucinating your friends as vengeful, mangled, bloody corpses seeking to rip you to shreds for the sins you committed against them. Either way, you need new friends cause either they're undead and haunting you, or they may be toxic—literally in Nadine's case!

You play as a girl named Noire who was tasked by your friend Mary to get some more alcohol from the kitchen. It sounds like a simple task but the hallway may as well be an endless dark cavern to her addled mind. To make things even more bewildering, there's a skinless man demanding that you return his skin even though you have no idea what he's groaning about. But you know what they say, ignorance of your crimes won't get you out of punishment. If you don't have his skin by the next time you meet, the No-Skin Man will be the last thing you see...

You are presented with three randomized locations to chose from. Depending on your luck, you may end up with an enemy encounter or an event.

Armed with a Knife, loaded Gun, spare Ammo, and Nightshade, you must traverse the labyrinth that the house has become and fight your friends and other unwelcome guests. I'm not sure if you can miss people you don't remember but you're sure to miss your attacks often if you don't manage your accuracy stat. And you're guaranteed to miss every shot you don't take if you forget to pick up more ammo!

Defeating an enemy will earn you Crimson Fragments to purchase equipment/consumables from shops for your current run, a meager amount of Lunar Fragments for permanent unlocks that add new items/passives/rooms/enemies, and a consumable item.

After that, +2% is added to the progress meter and another three locations are presented to you. At specifically 30% and 60%, you will fight a random boss. Also as you progress, at certain intervals you'll gain +1 max hp (the only guaranteed "healing" you get outside of events/passives/items)... but your enemies have their own hp gains too! Hope you're lucky enough to obtain some permanent dmg boosts from events or the only light awaiting you in this eerie tunnel is the burning pyre of the undead!

Oh yeah, Moon's not haunted but she is a Goddess; Noire's Goddess interestingly enough. What exactly does she expect of her worshippers? What are her goals? All I know is you need Lunar Fragments to make your future runs better off and give yourself some occult-based life insurance. You heard it here folks, the true horror is actually capitalism!

There are two unlockable characters that I know of and two extended routes with bonus bosses more unforgiving than the demo's standard final boss. Can you obtain all seven recollections? Will this game leave you more confused and with more questions than answers? If there were two fellow followers of The Moon and one killed the other for a gummy bear, would that be messed up or what? The answer to all these questions might just be: yes.

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 27- Part 5

Two Crunches kill here, and it's even better because Kirin resists Psychic! Which I completely forgot about!

Now then, let's see what's in this room that was so important that a butterfly woman had to guard it.

Like…the other panel! Hah, here we go!

Now, let's go use that Healing Shard in the other room just to have everyone topped up, and see if there's anything I missed.

Oooh, I will gladly take that. Anything else?

Huh…well, I can't foresee any unintended consequences for this action!

Oh, wow, there really weren't any unintended consequences for this. Nice! Factory candy!

So back down here, the gates are open…I'm positive that's where the PULSE is, there are literally no other places to go. 

So, back to that Muk…I'm still a bit unsure of what to do. Like, I know special moves won't do much while physical moves will, and it'll change its type throughout the battle with Protean, that's easy enough. But without knowing its moveset, I don't know what to prepare for. Looking back on the movesets of the Tangrowth PULSEs, they had some moves Tangrowth can't typically learn, so I can't rely on Muk’s movepool for any hints. I expect it to have a Poison-type move, sure, but what about its other three slots?

It could have a Dark-type move to deal with Psychic-types, and a Water- or Grass-type move to deal with Ground-types (more likely the former though, it's got fewer weaknesses). Maybe an Electric-type move too, to take advantage of Factory Field. But I could try to use Factory Field myself, so it might have its own Ground-type attack to shut that down. So that's four other options of moves, five in total, which doesn't fit with Muk’s four move slots.

I could pivot around my party to get it to use all of its moves, but I might lose too much HP on everyone that way. There's also the question of who I send out on the Muk. Do I start with Glare, to paralyze it and use Screech to make its already bad Defense and Speed even worse (and to provide the chance for it to be immobilized for a turn)? Or do I start with Kirin, to deal big damage with Zen Headbutt immediately while it's still a Poison-type? And what about Kirin's item? The Odd Incense gives her an immediate boost to Psychic damage, sure, but the Amplified Rock would let Kirin use Psychic Terrain and have it last longer, cutting off any possible Electric boost Muk could get from Factory Field, if it even knows any Electric-type moves at all. So which is more important? Interference, raw damage, or changing the Field? 

Not to mention half my team are special attackers (Bloom, Prong, Crater), which won't do much against Muk’s massive Sp. Defense. But I don't know if I want to swap anyone out for another physical attacker because…I'm probably not just gonna be battling Muk! I'm battling Muk as a part of a Meteor Admin’s team, I'm gonna have other Pokémon to defeat before Muk comes out! And I don't know which Admin it's gonna be! Is Ace gonna show back up? Will ZEL make a return? Maybe it'll even be Taka, who the heck knows!

So, thinking on it a bit more…here's what I'll do for Muk. I'll lead with Glare, paralyze it, and if she lives, Screech it down. And from there, I'll send in whichever Pokémon would be best based on what type it is at that moment. Hopefully, it'll be one of my physical attackers- Riptide, Glare herself, or Kirin. 

We're good on items, good on HP and PP…so, let's get this started.

Oh, hey ZEL, hey Mr. Meteor. I wasn't expecting to see both of them here, especially Mr. Meteor himself. Gosh, I hope this isn't gonna be some kinda Double Battle thing…

You think you're the one being disrespected? Take a look at some of the RNG I've gotten throughout this Let's Play so far, and you'll see who's really lacking any respect around here!

Admins in Team Meteor really like their wordplay, noted.

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[abominationvault]

Session 36: Sat 18 May 2024

So we lied to the druid (and the merchant whose wife was killed, who has now given us a discount at his shop…) and told her we killed the werewolf. He still wants his component pouch, so Sprocket is going to scout out the naked hippy party at Stone Ring Pond and see if he can find it or something similar. Skabb and Flashbang might be in the running to lead Stone Ring Pond, now that Curly Quim has been told to step down after the debacle with the ritual that turned Otari’s mayor into a chicken. Jorg’ath is still not allowed to Pet That Dawg. Did I miss anything? Oh, Sprocket has Stage 1 of Goblin Pox, but he doesn’t know about it yet.

Skabb and Jorg’ath have had chicken tikka masala; out of a box, like, none of your homemade crap. No Hartvig this week, he’s going into storage until next time. Skabb wants to buy him some terrible clothes and make him wear them, and hide his real clothes. Or we could get him embroiled in a relationship with a fleshwarp…? No, Skabb could give him a pox and we just won’t tell him! There is talk of pulling Jorg’ath’s tail off and tying Hartvig to the butt stump. (We probably won’t do that one.) Skabb offers to take him for the week so he doesn’t miss out on the xp.

The DM has made us a handout to tell us more about Crow’s Casks and Magiloy, the alchemy place and its proprietor. Also the shrine to Cayden Cailean:

He doesn’t actually have more information yet, so I’ll paste that in later. (Jorg’ath, on seeing Magiloy: “She’s gonna be my wife-crow.” He is warned that she used to be a pirate; he’ll have to take her down the clinic before the wedding.)

(There is a whole conversation about the word ‘discharge’. I won’t document that.)

Shall we forge on and adventure, then?

Jorg’ath has one more try at Petting That Dawg; he gets bitten. Crit for 45 biting damage! “Oh, I think I’ve died.” He hasn’t quite, he still has 19 hp left somehow. Skabb cackles and points at him. She takes out a handful of insects and lightly toasts them over the camp fire.

We continue in the dungeon, to the south of the poisoning dining room while Luna and Sprocket change the baby. On his return, Sprocket does Jorg’ath some Risky Surgery. He does 8 damage first, then a medicine check +2: 16 for an 18 total. A success is an auto success - but he fails. That’s still 4d8 healing as Sprocket is an Expert at Medicine, but he can re-roll with a Hero Point if he wants…? Jorg’ath will take the 4d8, and thank you very much. He also loses the Wounded condition, nice. 11 total, minus the 8 he hurt him, means Jorg’ath has a grand total of 3 hp back. Sprocket rides on his foot for a while. “Wheeee motherfucker.” (DannyGloverDannyGlover.)

Hartvig does Jorg’ath a Heal as well, and we puzzle out his signature spell ability details. He rolls a 1 on the die. Skabb thinks the gods have decided that Jorg’ath deserves to bleed for a while. (Skabb takes a look at Hartvig’s character sheet. Does he have any conditions…? Jorg’ath: “Depression?”)

With 4 of the 45 hit points back that he lost, Jorg’ath boots the next door open. Uh oh… There’s stuff in there.

Grisly paintings, 3 large chairs and end tables with empty wine glasses. There is a figure standing in front of the desk:

Gasp! It’s Bollock!

We make perception checks. Sprocket and Luna think this is the guy from all those portraits. The rest of us just think he looks human-shaped, but is made of a mass of writhing leeches.

He turns to Jorg’ath standing in the door, and asks who we are and what we think we’re doing here.

“What up leech boy! Just your friendly neighbourhood lizard. Like what you’ve done with the place.”

Bollock screams at him to get out. Jorg’ath screams back that we will, but it’s too late - Bollock attacks!

Luna shuts the outer door on them both, turns to the rest of us and shrugs.

“Hey, that’s Ball-Bag!” Sprocket announces, pointing. Should we fight or run away? We all roll initiative, in spite of our instinct to let Jorg’ath deal with this situation he’s created by himself.

Sprocket is first, and he casts - well, no. He changes his mind. He was going to do Horizon Zero Dawn Thunder Sphere, but that would hurt his friends. Can he hold his action…? He moves Augustus and has him hold an action - he will “grab at the leechy man and give him a good old punchin’.”

Bollock does something but we don’t know what because the door is shut. Hartvig! Holds a spelll, I think. Skabb does a recall knowledge check to see if she knows anything about what Bollock is now, what’s up with all them leeches, hmm? She knows that he has become a Walking Vermin. A Worm that Walks. He has cast some form of ritual on himself - he has Darkvision and Tremorsense, can be a human shape or split into a pile of leeches, and may retain some of his abilities from before he was a pile of gross. Walking Vermin are highly resistant to physical damage, immune to poison, have a weakness to AoE effects like Fireball. She does another Recall Knowledge to see if she knows about his abilities from before; she knows he was high ranking under Velcro, was a drow and a mage but that’s all she knows. She has one action left; she uses it to shout all this information at the rest of us.

Jorg’ath is briefly discouraged by the resistance to physical damage, until he is reminded that he has magical weapons now. “Oh yeah!”

Luna is AFK with BWJ2, so Sprocket takes over for her. She opens the door, grabs Jorg’ath by the tail and drags him out of the room, and shuts the door again. As a free action she gives Jorg’ath a disdainful look. (Augustus goes to start punching but pulls back when he sees that it’s Jorg’ath and not a pile of leeches.)

Hartvig does another Heal on Jorg’ath for 2d8+16. 26! “Drinkin’ in those juicy hit points!” Jorg’ath crows, delighted.

Jorg’ath readies an attack, and presses his tail to the floor by the door like a draught excluder to stop any leeches getting in. Nadia readies a lesser tanglefoot bag shot with her crossbow.

Sprocket wants to ready Horizon Thunder Sphere, but his friends are still in the AoE. Jorg’ath offers to stay while the others scarper, and he will take the damage. Sprocket readies it, if Luna and Augustus will move and Jorg’ath will open the door. He can ready the 3 action version of the spell and Augustus can move as well using their ability, Act Together.

It’s Bollock’s turn, the DM announces ominously, and then moves to Hartvig’s turn. Skabb flips through his spells to find an AoE one. She finds one that does a cone, Cry of Destruction, and readies it. She moves Hartvig so that Sprocket’s spell won’t get him when it goes off. As soon as Bollock gets within 15 feet, he’ll release it.

Skabb moves and readies another spell, it’s not AoE though.

Luna will retreat and hide behind a chair, then ready her shortbow. It’s a plus 1 weapon; she holds it up about where she thinks the eye would be. She is confident that she is hidden, the DM tells her. “I’m always confident that I’m hidden.”

Jorg’ath pings the door open to see that Bollock has been sneaking up on us and is right the other side!

Nadia releases her attack - it’s a 24 to hit! Square in the face with a Tanglefoot Bag. It has no effect aside from the damage of the crossbow bolt. She fires Alkonost and Bluebird, and recalls all her weapons to her bandolier, and reloads the crossbow. (Retcon? It has four shots left so it won’t need reloading yet. Yes - DM allows this.)

Sprocket looses Horizon Thunder Sphere. 27 hits! He gets another 4d6 damage on top of the 9, and Bollock takes 25 damage total, yeah.

It’s Bollock’s turn - but the DM lets us release any held actions as he moves into the room. Luna fires her shortbow and Hero Points it (still a miss), Skabb casts Worm’s Repast:

Hartvig casts Cry of Destruction as well, making his curse go up one level. I have no idea what hit because I was writing down a lot of simultaneous attacks!

Bollock takes his damage, and then his turn. He casts Dimension Door and appears on the table in the middle of the room, to the dismay of all. Skabb wants to bite him with her Grill and start eating him. Because of course she does.

He does this:

Skabb Hero Points her save for an 18, taking only 13 damage. She finds herself engulfed in leeches. Skabb: “Little do they know. She is having a bath in bar snacks.”

Hartvig. Has anyone been hurt except the stupid lizard? Yes, Skabb. Hartvig casts a 2 actioner on Skabb, and then Guidance. Sadly, she is obscured by leeches, so Hartvig has to roll to target her. (Sprocket argues that he should have advantage on the roll, as ‘covered in leeches’ is not an unusual state in which to find Skabb.) Hartvig makes the roll, and casts Heal, giving her back 2d8+16 - 28 total. He rolls again to target her with Guidance, and makes this roll as well. She is Guided.

Skabb is next, and she will commence her feast. 27 to hit with her Grill of Aberration Bane! Is Bollock an aberration? The DM checks… Yes he is! He takes 10 damage from her bite, and she goes in again. She Hero Points the 12 on her second attack and crits! 18 more damage! Same again, could she use another Hero Point if she needs to, or is it only 1 per turn? She rolls a ten… no Hero Point. She could Guidance it but that still won’t get her there. Oh well.

Luna could Electric Arc? That forces a save so she won’t have to roll to target Bollock, so she does that. He rolls a 24, but he still takes 6 damage. Luna: “Lovely!” She takes aim with her bow, rolling a d20 to target him first. She makes the roll, and then rolls to hit - 27 for 8 piercing damage. That’s her done.

Jorg’ath will hop up onto the table and do a big old angry lizard roar, and go into a Rage. He starts slashing with his greatsword but misses. He Hero Points his attack for a 21! Oh shit, 21 misses…

Nadia misses with her crossbow but crits with Alkonost - Howdy Doodis! Oogie Boogie explodes, his leeches landing in Skabb’s open mouth.

Skabb makes a Reflex save… 15. With her recall knowledge she knows that if even one leech escaped, the monster could have reformed, but she has caught and snaffled every single one!

Hartvig is at curse level 1, so he is sighing a lot and we can all hear Bullet for My Valentine, for some reason.

We carry Skabb into the next room, as she’s too full of leeches to walk. Luna, Skabb and Nadia all have a look around for treasures. Luna finds a Lantern of Empty Light. “Oooh, just what I need.”

She also spots a door, falls off the earth, and has to be put back. We don’t know how it happened, so we blame Hartvig. (Sprocket has been deleted as well. Luna: “If only it was that easy in real life.”)

Grabby Cat finds scrolls of Comprehend Languages, Paralyse, and Worms Repast.

The walls of the next chamber are grey; the ceiling bubbles as if infected flesh. There is a screaming dwarf chained to a table… And something else. Luna has made a friend! We roll initiative! Well, most of us do. Hartvig and Jorg’ath are still in the last room, busy flirting.

It’s a Will-O’-Wisp! Sprocket pulls out the spell card for Dungeon Bidet.

The DM has two bits of good news for us: One, its aura just sheds light, not damage-dealing awfulness, and two, it’s just a plain old Will-O’-Wisp. Not one of the fancy ones with extra guns or something. It flies up to Luna, using two of its actions. Then it does this:

Skabb is up. Sprocket thinks they might be undead, so she considers a Heal spell. Since she’s (in her words) too fat to move, she Recalls Knowledge instead. She knows that they are aberrations, and can go invisible. “Ohhhh, fuck, am I going to have to get up?”

Can she move through ‘old wispy-bollocks’? She can tumble through an enemy with a successful Acrobatics check. She rolls a red 9, and Hero Points it. It’s Reflex save is a 28!! That’s ludicrous. Skabb can move diagonally though, so she scooches past it instead. She bites it with a 24. DM, smugly: “That’s a miss, I’m afraid.” General outrage at this.

Skabb goes again and rolls a crit 29! She earns her Hero Point back for being ballsy. 27 damage!

Luna is up in its face, not normally a place she likes to be. She backs up, and it doesn’t get an opportunity attack. Luna, belatedly: “Oh, shit, I forgot about that.”

Luna jumps behind a chair for a bit of cover; there’s no point hiding as it’s looking at her. 28 hits!

Nadia misses, Hero points, misses, sulks and reloads.

Sprocket does some measuring and is pleased with the results. Phase Bolt, 24 misses. Outrage! “In which case, Spout.” Well, it’s immune to all spells that aren’t Faerie Fire, Glitterdust, Magic Missile or Maze. Cooooooooooooooool.

The Will-O’-Wisp Shocks Skabb, and crits. “Skabb is dead,” she announces. “I’m a very fat corpse.” The Will-O’-Wisp goes invisible, just for shits and gigs.

Jorg’ath has fallen asleep, so we will pick up next week when he’s refreshed and can charge in with his usual zeal.

[selfdiagnosedeyemotif]

Chapter Four (Aestia):

Opens in The Far Harbour, which is notably not a town (there's a tavern so that you can choose to do this chapter when you want but you can encounter enemies and shit)

Aestia comments a lot about missing Lylah but soldiers onward

Not much to do beforehand, so travel through the route straight to the entrance of…

The Fourth Dungeon: The Masterless Wood

Largest dungeon in at least Aestia's story, maybe the game (I dunno I'm not actually making the damn thing)

I have genuinely no idea what its gonna look like but I want it to have a crazy wacky puzzle

Probably gonna include a six-springs-two-poison type thing

Not sure on the exact details but it's gonna be wacky

Enemies: Howlers and Revenants and Remnants oh my

I WISH THIS WAS LONGER THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A COOL DUNGEON BUT I DONT HAVE IDEAS

AAAAAAAAA

Reaching the end of the dungeon, Aestia finds a clearing with a small cottage worked into the trees

In front of it is a small campfire, with Sir Eldroy and an incredibly old woman speaking to each other

Sir Eldroy is claiming to have doubts with his path, is clearly glancing back at the house in the trees again and again

Aestia bursts in to stop them, Eldroy turns immediately, kicks Aestia in the chest, and summons a circle of flame around them, locking The Great Seer out

The Great Seer screams at him, calling him a liar, as we cut into…

The Fourth Boss: Sir Eldroy Herres

Summons in three lackeys at the start of the fight: more Greater Embers (they don’t block weaknesses they’re just nuisances enough to need to be dealt with

Eldroy starts with a shield that makes him immune to stat debuffs, will disappear after the first break

Also has a Sacred Slash attack

Can hit a lot harder with fire attacks, has some AOE bullshit

Can also inflict Silence and Terror

Maybe has an attack that specifically only work against Silenced/Terrified targets (think of Father’s insta-kill attack that only works if the target has that blood effect or Kaldena’s insta-kill that only works on Blinded targets)

Boost mode effect: kills all Embers like the Tormented Blaze fight, displays the message “Sir Eldroy is becoming filled with light”

Boost mode attack: Ending Strike (one sword strike, lowers elem. def., one fire attack, single target, inflicts Terror on whole party with no save against it)

After beating him up enough, cuts out of the fight into another cutscene

“ENOUGH, heretic. You have walked too far in defiance of the word of the Pontifex, and you will pay the price. Mother Orsa, Father Finis, grant me now the power to strike down Aestia Trititaka, APOSTATE OF THE SACRED FLAME!”

Reaches and grabs a pendant like the archbishop, smashes in on the ground

Circle of flames shrinks to barely fit the two, Sir Eldroy becomes wreathed in flame

Cuts back into a battle sequence, fighting against…

The Second Phase: Eldroy, Ablaze

Before the battle officially starts there’s a small dialogue segment of Aestia being absolutely FLOORED by this

Eldroy looks INSANE, he’s covered in green fire, eyes glowing, broadsword looking as though it might melt any second, standing stock-straight

Summons two more lackeys at the start of this phase: Perfected Embers

These are the first actually dangerous forms of Ember, these guys can do real damage

Eldroy has ten shields and regenerates two each turn

No more immunity to debuffs only PAIN

A small HP drain is in effect as well (there is FIRE)

Has one attack themed after Orsa and one after Finis, those are the ones that get animated sprites

After the first break has only eight shields, then six (will sit at that for the rest of the battle if you keep breaking them)

Boost mode message: “Eldroy is grasping at divinity!”

Boost mode attack: Smite of the Ending (same as Ending Strike but also inflicts Silence)

After the fight, Eldroy is about to start on a monologue when he stops, as if looking at something directly in front of him (some of these mannerisms will NOT work with octopath graphics but I care not)

“Pontifex… I… the mission can still go on without issue. I have not failed you. Fabian has likely completed his objective yet. I have… no… Pontifex! Your Holiness! Please! Have mercy! HAVE MERCY!”

Eldroy is seemingly sucked away by fire (not like the archbishop, he had a burnt corpse), completely gone

Aestia enters one of those black-screen fugue states and promptly passes out from shock and exhaustion

Wakes up in bed with The Great Seer

Loredrop time!!!!

General gist: The Great Seer insists upon Aestia first-naming her (her name is Aschei, thanks for asking), drops a ton of shit about Orsa and Finis

The pontifex came to ask a question of Aschei a while back

Her main question: why would they create a world if that world included death and suffering?

Aschei was unable to answer and then-Sister Victoria Inaméa stormed off

Aestia and Aschei pool their knowledge and conclude that the Pontifex is somehow trying to harness the power of The Maker Gods to eliminate death and/or suffering from the world

The purpose of palimpsests remains mysterious

Aestia explains the situation with the mysterious figure, who Sir Eldroy called Fabian

Aschei is mortified, goes to check her library, and finds a book missing from it

It turns out that Aestia has been out for TWO DAYS

She asks why Aschei didn’t wake her sooner, Aschei says it was to recover her strength

“I can see it: you are a great woman. Yours is a soul that shines with the light of many stars, and I would not let you go unless I thought you would be able to walk away from the pontifex safely. But you are ready. Go.”

“Like the stars… Lylah said the same thing…”

“Lylah?” [pause] “Hmm, I see. She is very important to you, yes?”

“I think of her every day.”

Aschei directs Aestia to The Spire of Beginnings, in the Peaklands, where the land of [continent name not found] was first touched by Orsa and Finis

“Go, my child, and take great care to stay safe. If not for this old woman, do it for that Lylah of yours. I’m sure she would like it.”

[beantothemax]

time for the penultimate chapter. steel thineself.

Chapter Four:

Opens in The Far Harbour, which is notably not a town (there's a tavern so that you can choose to do this chapter when you want but you can encounter enemies and shit)

Aestia comments a lot about missing Lylah but soldiers onward

Not much to do beforehand, so travel through the route straight to the entrance of…

The Fourth Dungeon: The Masterless Wood 

Largest dungeon in at least Aestia's story, maybe the game (I dunno I'm not actually making the damn thing)

I have genuinely no idea what its gonna look like but I want it to have a crazy wacky puzzle

Probably gonna include a six-springs-two-poison type thing

Not sure on the exact details but it's gonna be wacky

Enemies: Howlers and Revenants and Remnants oh my

I WISH THIS WAS LONGER THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A COOL DUNGEON BUT I DONT HAVE IDEAS

AAAAAAAAA

Reaching the end of the dungeon, Aestia finds a clearing with a small cottage worked into the trees

In front of it is a small campfire, with Sir Eldroy and an incredibly old woman speaking to each other

Sir Eldroy is claiming to have doubts with his path, is clearly glancing back at the house in the trees again and again

Aestia bursts in to stop them, Eldroy turns immediately, kicks Aestia in the chest, and summons a circle of flame around them, locking The Great Seer out

The Great Seer screams at him, calling him a liar, as we cut into…

The Fourth Boss: Sir Eldroy Herres

Summons in three lackeys at the start of the fight: more Greater Embers (they don’t block weaknesses they’re just nuisances enough to need to be dealt with

Eldroy starts with a shield that makes him immune to stat debuffs, will disappear after the first break

Also has a Sacred Slash attack

Can hit a lot harder with fire attacks, has some AOE bullshit

Can also inflict Silence and Terror

Maybe has an attack that specifically only work against Silenced/Terrified targets (think of Father’s insta-kill attack that only works if the target has that blood effect or Kaldena’s insta-kill that only works on Blinded targets)

Boost mode effect: kills all Embers like the Tormented Blaze fight, displays the message “Sir Eldroy is becoming filled with light”

Boost mode attack: Ending Strike (one sword strike, lowers elem. def., one fire attack, single target, inflicts Terror on whole party with no save against it)

After beating him up enough, cuts out of the fight into another cutscene

“ENOUGH, heretic. You have walked too far in defiance of the word of the Pontifex, and you will pay the price. Mother Orsa, Father Finis, grant me now the power to strike down Aestia Trititaka, APOSTATE OF THE SACRED FLAME!”

Reaches and grabs a pendant like the archbishop, smashes in on the ground

Circle of flames shrinks to barely fit the two, Sir Eldroy becomes wreathed in flame

Cuts back into a battle sequence, fighting against… 

The Second Phase: Eldroy, Ablaze

Before the battle officially starts there’s a small dialogue segment of Aestia being absolutely FLOORED by this

Eldroy looks INSANE, he’s covered in green fire, eyes glowing, broadsword looking as though it might melt any second, standing stock-straight

Summons two more lackeys at the start of this phase: Perfected Embers

These are the first actually dangerous forms of Ember, these guys can do real damage

Eldroy has ten shields and regenerates two each turn

No more immunity to debuffs only PAIN

A small HP drain is in effect as well (there is FIRE)

Has one attack themed after Orsa and one after Finis, those are the ones that get animated sprites

After the first break has only eight shields, then six (will sit at that for the rest of the battle if you keep breaking them)

Boost mode message: “Eldroy is grasping at divinity!”

Boost mode attack: Smite of the Ending (same as Ending Strike but also inflicts Silence)

After the fight, Eldroy is about to start on a monologue when he stops, as if looking at something directly in front of him (some of these mannerisms will NOT work with octopath graphics but I care not)

“Pontifex… I… the mission can still go on without issue. I have not failed you. Fabian has likely completed his objective yet. I have… no… Pontifex! Your Holiness! Please! Have mercy! HAVE MERCY!”

Eldroy is seemingly sucked away by fire (not like the archbishop, he had a burnt corpse), completely gone

Aestia enters one of those black-screen fugue states and promptly passes out from shock and exhaustion

Wakes up in bed with The Great Seer

Loredrop time!!!!

General gist: The Great Seer insists upon Aestia first-naming her (her name is Aschei, thanks for asking), drops a ton of shit about Orsa and Finis

The pontifex came to ask a question of Aschei a while back

Her main question: why would they create a world if that world included death and suffering? 

Aschei was unable to answer and then-Sister Victoria Inaméa stormed off

Aestia and Aschei pool their knowledge and conclude that the Pontifex is somehow trying to harness the power of The Maker Gods to eliminate death and/or suffering from the world

The purpose of palimpsests remains mysterious

Aestia explains the situation with the mysterious figure, who Sir Eldroy called Fabian

Aschei is mortified, goes to check her library, and finds a book missing from it

It turns out that Aestia has been out for TWO DAYS

She asks why Aschei didn’t wake her sooner, Aschei says it was to recover her strength

“I can see it: you are a great woman. Yours is a soul that shines with the light of many stars, and I would not let you go unless I thought you would be able to walk away from the pontifex safely. But you are ready. Go.”

“Like the stars… Lylah said the same thing…”

“Lylah?” [pause] “Hmm, I see. She is very important to you, yes?”

“I think of her every day.”

Aschei directs Aestia to The Spire of Beginnings, in the Peaklands, where the land of [continent name not found] was first touched by Orsa and Finis

“Go, my child, and take great care to stay safe. If not for this old woman, do it for that Lylah of yours. I’m sure she would like it.”

THAT ENTIRE BOSS FIGHT WAS WRITTEN SO WELL WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIKE. 'ELDROY, ABLAZE' IS A VERY COOL BOSS TITLE AND. JUDT. THE EVERYTHING GOING ON. ELDROY 'GRASPING FOR DIVINITY'!!!!!!!!! THIS IS AMAZING

'do it for that Lylah of yours. I’m sure she would like it.' hey chaotic do you want me to cry. this is how you make me cry.

[claire-starsword]

The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 3

No doodle this time as I had no ideas, every joke about giant bats sucking has already been done I think. Also I've just realized I lost all my pre battle screenshots due to a emulation mishap so. Oops. We bad at pictures today, sorry.

Anyway. We return to Guardiana to sing our praises and maybe not dwell too much on the fact Gong just died. Resurrection is too a good display of Guardiana's magic. I guess.

We say hi to Mae and Gort and grab their weapons for extra money. We also grab plenty of stuff from the treasure room. The Antidote gets safely tucked in the item box as poison won't be a thing for the next battles. The Angel Wing is against my rules and thus to be sold. The Power Wine and Defense Potion also go to the item box as I don't see the need for them right now.

More importantly, the Rousing Ring. This thing is a gift for giant bat haters everywhere, preventing a character from falling asleep. Unfortunately there's only one in game (unless they show up in deals? but I sure haven't seen them there ever). I give it to Gong because Max is kinda overleveled right now, and Tao and Lowe should not be directly hitting enemies too often.

All the loot we could sell gives us a sizable chunk of money. I check the deals and there's still nothing there. The Guardiana weapon shop is also very disappointing. So it's time to start stocking on Steel Rings as I hoped. And by stocking I mean buy two. Definitely would like to have more, as for now, I move all three to Tao, who is by far the most frail character right now, and next battles will be more open so I don't think Max and Gong will manage to fully protect everyone.

I also replenish everyone's stock of Medical Herbs, which isn't a big deal since we didn't use many.

This is where I should have screenshots to show how absurd Max is getting in stats, his attack is like 20 compared to the others having less than 15, definitely need to let the others catch up on levels. Tao's base defense is 4, which is half of Gong's, the guy who died last battle. You can see now why I want those rings so bad. Especially since I recall now there being more Rune Knights next battle.

We cannot delay meeting them any longer. I save the game, and go on for the glory of Guardiana's Magic School.

The clear bonus is 400 gold for winning in at most 10 turns, almost enough money for another Steel Ring, so I want that, but perhaps I should have learned a lesson from last time. Also I don't think skipping enemies to get to Alterone is worth it, we'd miss a lot of exp. Let actually try to minimize deaths this time.

We have a couple of bats who I think will advance immediately, and a lot of dark dwarves. I would love if they didn't advance, which might mean taking things slowly and missing the bonus. Though they might advance anyway and then I'll feel very stupid. Oh well.

Turn 2, nothing happened. The dwarves indeed don't feel like moving, while the bats have inched closer. Let's see if we can deal with them quickly. I send Max to bait them as his huge stats should shrug off bats without much issue.

They take the bait immediately due to having great agility. Their position annoys me a bit, but at least every other character can hop to beat them up right now.

By characters I mean Tao. Lowe can't reach, and Gong gets dodged because flying enemies Do That A Lot. Tao does level up though, and gets Blaze 2, which is fun and exciting. I will mention though, she has yet to get a single defense point via level up. I'm beginning to wonder if it's ever a thing for her.

Turn 4. Gong has managed to hit the second bat and take more than half its HP so Tao can definitely finish it up after Gong tanks a hit, and he will not fall asleep due to his ring. Let's see if Max can bait some dwarves already, though I have little hope of getting the bonus. I just rather these guys come for Max than anyone else.

The dwarves refuse to come and are instead gathering to block the road, which is the fastest path to Alterone. But I said I wouldn't rush, so perhaps beating them from the forest side I can get some terrain bonuses. Unfortunately they too will be getting the terrain bonuses.

To put it plainly, I don't know what I'm doing.

Turn 6. Whatever I did was good, one dwarf came after while the others are now closer to the road and thus getting less terrain bonuses. Hope they stay that way.

Max and Gong team up flawlessly and Gong's level up makes him seem very determined to not die again.

Man, why did I even want the Demibuster.

Lowe is doing a whole bunch of nothing so I send him to heal Max from all the 1 damages he's been taking.

Everything proceeds smoothly and Tao proves that yes, she can get defense on level ups. Sometimes. Occasionally.

Lowe also gets to do something after Max kindly left a dwarf with 1 HP remaining.

Unfortunately we're at turn 9 with a mass of knights and bats remaining so it's safe to say the bonus is impossible. So let us be as cautious as possible and go through the forest, hoping dispatching the bats before the knights get involved.

The bats get baited and finally some snoozing happens. It's chill though, I legit skipped Max's turn to see if others can get the exp.

Lowe proceed to disappoint me as usual.

Eventually he does land a hit but it doesn't even do half and I don't have that kind of patience, Max reaps the rewards here and his level ups continue to be absolutely wild.

Knights are horrible in forests so I'm hoping it's okay to advance this much. Gong also heals himself for some exp, clearly no useful healing is getting done today.

I mess up again because they can still use the roads! Everyone thank the Steel Rings right now.

Gong is also reaping sweet rewards of his training. The reward is "dying less".

Tao spends her last MP on sweet revenge.

Lowe finally gets a level up from healing Tao, and learns Detox. This never happens in a timely manner on my usual playthroughs.

Nothing else to say, we wipe out the knights in this chill manner, with mostly Max and Gong. I try leaving this final guy for Lowe but Max counters because he's too good to share the spotlight. We're four or five turns beyond the bonus, I didn't pay attention, but the battle itself was pretty easy. I feel this will be a pattern in this playthrough, we're pretty overleveled for this part so we survive well, but with few characters we just don't deal enough damage to wipe the enemies fast enough. Obviously, this is because again I wanted all enemy exp instead of rushing to the objective.

There's only so much I can weep about it right now though. This is Alterone, the town full of loot. So money won't exactly be lacking. I might have one less Steel Ring by the end of the chapter though :(

after like ten minutes maybe more of opening chests, including the one after talking to the king, we have extra herbs, Healing Seed for the late game, another Power Wine and Defense Potion, a Life Loaf that might actually be from Guardiana and I didn't notice, some Middle Swords, plural, and useless wooden weapons, I can't understand why they're here. One Middle Sword manages to make Max more powerful than he already is. The rest of the weapons are going to make us rich as the average Alterone citizen.

The deals section decides to finally have something…

It is an axe. Which no one will use in this run. Also I would love to have data on these special weapons because the Jagged Flash tends to be the most useless of them to me, I don't notice any significant extra damage on flying enemies and flying enemies dodge it all the time anyway. This might be the worst thing we could have possibly rolled. Let's just check the normal weapon shop.

The Demibuster is a whopping 800 gold and actually weaker than the Middle Sword. It will still deal more damage against dark dwarves, but man, Max doesn't need it.

The Voodoo Staff meanwhile is a new weapon exactly between the Wooden and Power Staff. Makes sense, right? It can also poison enemies, which I guess could be useful, if we weren't killing anything in one or two hits anyway. With all that said, the Power Staff is debuting like, literally the next battle. I also don't have much interest in sending the blazing woman and healer guy to hit stuff when they could be blazing and healing instead, especially when their defenses still don't inspire much confidence. That's right baby this isn't the Alterone Magic School run this is the Guardiana Magic School, I'm going back there and grabbing more Steel Rings before the chapter closes!!

Just to complete the ramblings, Alterone has their own special ring too, the Evade Ring. In this version, characters have no natural chance of evading as far as I've seen, and depend on equipment like this instead. Of course, this one stacks to a chance of at most 6-8%, so it's very shaky compared to our great and solid Guardiana equipment. It is cheaper than Steel Rings though, so might be a good option for squishy characters once we run out of money.

For now though, we're off to funding the restoration of our glorious country. We buy three rings and store them safely in the item box for now.

We have an old friend to meet next time, after all.

Losses: 0 Deaths: 1 This episode: not yet sponsored by the Guardiana royal family but Queen Anri if you're out there I'd love the money

[patchdotexe]

doip. / 6.9.23: Attack of the Boar

WAHOO. WAHOO. WAHOO. WAHOO oh hey its 6/9 . nice

oh also jason is here! yay jason! jorb has invited him to the campaign so he's spectating us getting our ass kicked probably considering he got invited Yesterday. excited to see where this goes

LAST TIME, ON DRAGON OF ICESPIRE PEAK: Out heroes were taskedb y Falcon the Hn=unter to clean out the Woodland Manse of the . talos. granok is doing dark rituals for a isnister god. Granoth was defeated, not before he was able to send a message, proclaiming to the group that Gorthok would come. After returning to Falcon's hunting lodge, our heroes celebrated their vicftory, and took a well-deserved night's sleep. But that sense of victory wouldnt last as Gorthok the Thunderboar tore down the very walls o the lodge! Will our heroes be able to defeart gforthok and save their bac on . find out. today [blows up]

im telekinetically flinging targor around. yeet TIME FOR INITIATIVE. WAHOE targor has an initiative of pie (3.14) oh thank god, gorthok is Slow (also rolled a 3) LITTLE GUY IS A DIRE BADGER NOW we never did name nameless.

nyx: oh, i can burrow, that's interesting leo: you will be the lone survivor on account of digging in the earth for tubers

jorb: [struggling to move a guy] nyx: i like how he's teleporting around. leo: he's very indecisive about where he wants to teleport to we have immediately thrown targor to the wolves boars

EVERYBODY IS CHARGING AT ME AND FAILING TO HIT LOL oh no nevermind one rolled a nat20 while i was typing that oh dear targor is at half health already. on the opening salvo. eep LOL . THEYRE NOW THROWING JAVELINS AT ALIDAAR oh thats a 23 to hit, huh alidaar's hp is bugged uh oh. i wish it worked in my favour (i fixed it)

OPENING SALVO: ALIDAAR BLASTS LIKE 10 GUYS WITH A BREATH WEAPON. GET FUCKED LOL alidaar singlehandedly takes out like 8 guys in one go between his silver breath weapon and two-weapon fighting. get fucked lol kepesk enters a rage and takes out the guy alidaar missed! also i think i forgot to write it last time but whenever he rages he's got this like, sick-ass mask made of storm clouds and lightning

nyx: you're learning! you're becoming sentient! jorb & leo: YOU'RE SO SENTIENT TODAY

god these guys have like. no middle ground between "complete whiff" and "wrecking our shit" as far as attack rolls go. speaking of i have been javelin'd

THE BOAR CAN SHOOT LIGHTNING

jorb: ok you're gonna take 28 lightning damage green: not even that bad kepesk: [goes down to a third health]

FALCON IS HERE YEAH WOO THE HOTBOY IS HERE TO HOTGUY wait that doesnt make sense out of context. hi jorb there is a hermitcraft bit where scar tries to be hawkeye from the avengers but it sounds like he's saying "hotguy" and so now his superhero persona is hotguy. and also im calling falcon hot WHY DOES FALCON HAVE HALF OF THE PARTY'S TOTAL HP IN ONE MAN

we're still in the first round btw. they are now throwing javelins at nameless but OH MY GOD TARGOR IS NEARLY DEAD LMAO

round 2! very scuffed. alidaar ends up 3 hit comboing a Single Guy bc of an unlucky miss and im not wanting to risk another breath weapon while kepesk is in range bc uhhh 2d10 is not great when he's at 15hp. also im saving my big guns (runes + might) for when we engage the boar bc we're still thinning the crowd jorb constantly reminding us we can use our movement and then Also reminding us that if we do we will get mauled . thanks jorb (lighthearted)

successfully avoiding taking further damage by going afk (this is not true but i did go afk. it was not a cunning plan)

TIME FOR BOAR . boar has been stuck in the corner because of all the men we are slaughtering. green: he could move if he murdered the guys in the way leo: does the boar have friendly fire?

OH MY GOD KEPESK DODGED A HIT AND THEN GOT NICKED BY THE OTHER ONE AND WENT DOWN TO 2 HP. JESUS

green: this is one of those bossfights in a game where you're like "oh i'm supposed to lose" and then you lose and get a game over

nameless: KEPESK YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER YOU CAN'T DIE ON ME kepesk: [coughing] I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT nameless: NO YOU WON'T

jorb: [yellow] is gonna throw another javelin at falcon… nyx: how many javelins does he have? jorb: …yknow, that's a good point! he's not gonna do that! jason: Magical item: bag of endless javelins

FALCON HAS A LONGSWORD. NICE falcon sucks ass at swordfighting actually. great

jorb: turns out flailing a sword around 3 times in six seconds really sacrifices the accuracy. like "[falcon voice] huh. that looked cooler in my head."

alidaar charges at the guy next to falcon, hits with dragon slayer, whiffs with silver axe, then pivots and dragon slayers the guy on his left to death. NICE. jorb: falcon says "[approving] that's what i was trying to do!" alidaar: [thumbs up]

its the return of crunchy wordpad images sorry

WHY DID THEY REDUCE EVERYONE TO CUBES anyway we have successfully turned the tide

kepesk: [bites somebody] haha, didn't even taste that good! jorb: roll a deception check. green: haha - really ?? jorb: no.

jorb: next up it is the red cultists' turn! there are none of them left.

targor: fight on! the battle is nearly won! alidaar: we still have a big boar to deal with! kepesk: i have a big boar to deal with, i'm the only one fighting it (<- the only one targeted so far) jorb: gorthok is gonna advance. kepesk: i shouldn'tve said anything!

LOL GORTHOK JUST. WHIFFS THE ATTACK ON ALI. meanwhile kepesk keeps getting electrocuted

falcon continuing to - oh no he got a 20 to hit, nice! …and then got a 12. ok well 1 out of 3 aint bad green: next time he'll hit 2, he's getting better! leo: 1 out of 3 aint bad! falcon: thanks guys, i appreciate it.

time for another silver breath weapon! god im glad i have 3 charges now. one guy left standing! (and the giant murder boar.) OOF. MAN i fus ro dah'd gorthok to try and give kepesk some breathing room and it no-selled it. not ideal. however alidaar DID then jump over kepesk's head to axe the final add so now it is just The Boar Problem OH MY GOD KEPESK COMPELLED DUEL LOL. love it when ridiculous compelled duels. nvm action economy is a mess

green: kepesk takes a look at the boar and goes BREAKFAST and bites it

following up with some nice rapier hits! woo! love that two guys have 2 actions and a bonus green: im imagining that turn as kepesk like, bites, and then does the slashing on its butt while dangling from his jaws

HAHA KEPESK - uh oh nvm i am being stomped to death . OH GOD I AM LITERALLY BEING STOMPED TO DEATH. I HAVE BEEN KNOCKED DOWN TO -1 HP. THAT'S A FIRST . we haven't had to deal with that since the manticore! holy shit!

nyx: [stammering] IM GOING T . IM GOING TO . IM GGUWH. IM G [..] im going to cast guiding bolt

oh shit, 21 radiant damage! let's go! alidaar would be cheering if he wasn't unconscious

falcon does 2 piercing damage. he's helping

alidaar status: 1 succeeded death saving throw! huagh OH GOD MY PLANS. I WAS GONNA BE THE HEAVY HITTER

green: [figuring out actions] jorb: i'm sorry, you don't get to fire ball as a bonus action. (kepesk has a necklace of fireballs! this can only end well. green has decided to not try and immolate the fort)

AAA THE BOAR IS NEARLY DONE AAAA CMONNNN KILL - OH MY GOD IT HAS RELENTLESS? IT GOT BACK UP . FUCK. BUT ALSO IT'S ON ITS LAST LEGS STILL GO - OH MY GOD KEPESK STILL HAS THE SECOND ACTION KEPESK! KILL!!!

KEPESK IS GONNA FUCKING. AERITH GORTHOK. GOING FULL SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS. KEPESK DID A SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS KILL ON THE BIGASS BOAR

kepesk: FALCON. TELL THE COOK GUY

ali is still dead on the ground. lol. green: you don't heal when the fight is over?? jorb: no. leo: no :( green: this sucks

alidaar is no longer dying! wahoo! nameless: you're - my friend now. you're not allowed to die. aw. and then little guy goes binturong and curls up on him. kepesk: [injured] im the one that killed the thing =/

targor: we did it! we felled the beast! a glorious battle! hahahaowww [..] targor: it would be wise to rest. kepesk: haha no it's ok [gets up] [falls back over]

calling the session early bc nyx has to do homework! gonna try and get together sooner though ^w^ this was pretty fun for a bossfight session oh god gorthok was same cr as cryovain. but we handled him pretty well i think! (<- guy who got downed)

leo: we're picking up party members left and right now nyx: we're slurping them up like jellyfish. leo: [strained] grrreEAT

[klonoa voice] WAHOO! [deltarune explosion noise]

[crystalelemental]

Violet Adventures, part 4.  I think.  Might be part 5.

Team Star Defeated.

Titan Team Arven round 2.  He beat me, barely, the first time through.  The second time through, I thought I was super clever, putting Air Balloon on Pawmot.  Greedent also knows Psychic Fangs.  So that’s just great.  We did ultimately win, but by the skin of our teeth.  Espathra thought it could sit on Toedscruel, but it knows Power Whip and of course hit the attack instantly. 

League Team Alright, show time.  The team is Quaquaval, Dudunsparce, Garganacl, Brambleghast, Rabsca, and Mabosstiff.  We are level 49.  Time to see how easy this league actually is.

Vs. Rika The gameplan is Agility/Coil/Baton Pass Dudunsparce into Quaquaval.  This lasted approximately one turn, before catastrophe.  Turns out, her Whiscash knows Future Sight.  Which meant Quaquaval was very exceptionally definitely dead.  Donphan having Sturdy just ensured we didn’t take out two with this gambit.  Dudunsparce is at critical HP, and Quaquaval is down.  Not a great start!

Mabosstiff finishes up Donphan, and just barely misses the 2HKO on Camerupt.  Which means we fall asleep to Yawn.  Not great.  Fire Blast connects twice but misses once, but that’s all it needed to win.  So, Brambleghast had to finish Camerupt.  And then Dugtrio comes in.  I won’t front.  This is ideal.  Ghosts can switch out of trap abilities.  So I get up my Leech Seed (after three misses) and a layer of Spikes.  When she puts Sandstorm back up, Brambleghast takes a swing with Giga Drain, and miraculously lands it.  Dugtrio drops to the Leech Seed chip.  Clodsire has Protect, which is slightly irritating, but nothing we can’t manage thanks to this game dropping Ether like candy.  Brambleghast sits on Clodsire for days.  Even a crit is only like 50%.  We whittle it down a bit, until Phantom Force is in range (under half HP on Clod).  Fun fact, she threw out Toxic right as I vanished.  Don’t know why she didn’t lead with that one, Brambleghast would’ve been destroyed by that.  Oh well, one down.

Vs. Poppy Second verse, same as the first; Dudunsparce, get boosting.  Thankfully, Poppy leads with Stealth Rock, which is an open invitation to some free boosts.  We make it to +6, thanks to Heavy Slam kinda just bouncing off of us.  So now you may think, oh, go Quaquaval.  No.  No, that’s what she wants me to do.  See, she has Magnezone.  And I have now learned that this is the path to death.  Because that fucking thing will fry Quaquaal, and we’ll be without boosts.  No, we need another plan.  And I know just who to bring in.

Right as she runs out of Heavy Slam PP, pass to Garganacl.  Body Press + Recover.  With the Agility boosts, it outspeeds basically everyone.  Unfortunately Magnezone also had Flash Cannon, and despite Garganacl’s fantastic special defense, it got dead.  So there goes that plan I suppose.  Brambleghast it is.  Magnezone trucks that too.  We don’t die, so Salt Cure finishes the job.  But Brambleghast is on its way out now.  Corviknight is physical, so I get the thought in my head that I can take it with Dudunsparce and try another pass.  Body Press.  2PP on Roost left.  It crit anyway.  I’m not happy with this, but Rabsca with the Revival Blessing is oh right Brave Bird.  WELP.  At this point it’s basically good game.  I have no reason to believe my team can handle the remaining threats.  Mabosstiff manages Thunder Fang KO on Corviknight, but not before it gets Body Press in and leaves us near dead.  Now, if Mabosstiff were faster than Tinkaton, I’d say there was a chance.  Unfortunately, despite the Jolly nature, it’s not.  So it’s all on Water Tera Quaquaval’s Aqua Step to finish this thing.  It barely misses the KO.  Because of course it does.  Gigaton Hammer, even with the resist, takes it out.  Honestly, that’s super annoying, because like one more point of attack on Quaquaval would’ve done the job.

Vs. Rika (Round 2) Unlike the first round, I remembered to give Dudunspace Roost so it could set up all day long.  At +5 and Tera’d out, Quaquaval one-shots Whiscash, so Future Sight isn’t such a threat.  With +5 defense as well, we’re able to blank Donphan’s damage too, so the Sturdy effect doesn’t matter.  With Aqua Step boosting, we outpace Dugtrio too, removing the Sandstorm evasion cheese.  And while Clodsire has Water Absorb, I taught my Quaquaval Ice Spinner.  A much cleaner sweep this time through.

Vs. Poppy (Round 2) Okay kid, rematch time.  I have learned zero lessons and will be repeating all the same mistakes.  But this time, with intent.  The unfortunate reality is that Magnezone is a wall.  I cannot get past its shit.  Garganacl and Quaquaval both cannot manage it, and Rabsca is basically useless come Corviknight.  So instead, the plan is to go straight to Rabsca after they drop, revive, and get ready to sweep from there.  Amazingly, Poppy throws.  Magnezone uses Light Screen instead of icing Garganacl.  Salt Cure easily bypasses Corviknight, and at +6 speed too, Tinkaton is as dust.  Clean wins all day, friends.

Vs. Larry I finally, for the first time, remembered his lead is Sunny Day Tropius.  Quaquaval with Ice Spinner one-shot.  Next in is Staraptor, who I throw Garganacl into.  Unfortunately, I wildly underestimate how hard Close Combat will rock my shit, and Garganacl is barely alive, but Salt Cure does finish it.  It is at this point I get ambitious.  Dudunsparce, how well do you take Dragon Pulse?  Around 60 damage.  That’s enough for a Baton Pass sweep attempt.  Bless Altaria’s complete lack of offensive presence.  I don’t know Flamigo’s speed tier, but to be safe, I opt for a second Agility, then pass to Quaquaval.  I Tera to pure Water, just to avoid any Flying-based shenanigans.  Which it turns out I need, as Altaria, SOMEHOW, managed to outspeed.  In fact, Oricorio does too.  I double Agility boosted.  I am...so perplexed as to why I am having trouble.  But here we are, I suppose.  Rabsca, Revival Blessing my rock.  It miracle dodges Air Slash, and Rabsca actually managed to net a KO this run.  Unfortunately, that’s all it can do before Flamigo jumps in.  I decide to try with Mabosstiff, but apparently Scrappy means immune to Intimidate now?  News to me.  Admittedly, I’m kinda mad, because we do lose this one.  I just don’t understand how.  What happened there, Quaquaval?  So I decide to reload.  That one feels weird, and I’m wondering if I just forgot to Baton Pass or if I missed Altaria having Haze or something.

Things proceed similarly, except Garganacl gets crit so Mabosstiff has to save us.  It also gets a freeze on Altaria, which I decided to just kill off of.  Turns out, Oricorio is way scarier to set up on with Dudunsparce.  It knows fucking Teeter Dance.  Thankfully, Quaquaval actually is faster and stronger this time so I guess I just didn’t actually Baton Pass?  Quaquaval proceeds to hit itself in confusion fucking twice, after eating our Tera use so it didn’t die immediately, effectively throwing the match to Flamigo.

OKAY FUCKING ROUND CHRISTDAMN THREE I GUESS.  Only set up on Altaria.  ONLY ALTARIA.  Just gotta Ice Spinner Tropius and IT’S A FUCKING RANGE?!  QUAQUAVAL HOW ARE YOU THIS SHIT BRO?  YOU HAVE DROPPED EVERY FUCKING BALL.

Round 4, things proceed normally.  I pay very extreme close attention to the Baton Pass chain this time.  I am convinced I must have manually switched or something, because it clears just fine.  This was so much harder than it needed to be.  On like every level.

Vs. Hassel Alright, after that whole disaster, we enter the Hassel fight.  I am well aware that Noivern is up first, and lead Garganacl.  Astonishingly, Garganacl handles it just fine.  Dragon Pulse doesn’t do too muhc, and only Super Fang is much threat, so we can recover up without much issue.  Dragalge’s next.  I get overconfident, expecting to be able to outspeed is possibly, and it Hydro Pumps me into powder in response.  I opt for Quaquaval at this point.  Did you know it knows Thunderbolt?  So that was fun.  Less than half damage thanks to Assault Vest, but still not a great time.  Flapple is, unfortunately, quick enough to be a problem.  I attempt to do some boost passing with Dudunsparce.  It knows Leech Seed.  So this is bad.  Dragon Rush also crit, so we’re well on the back foot with very, very little headway.  The next one misses though, so I guess we’ll call it even since I didn’t die.  It crits again.  At this point I call it.  If it crits Dudunspace one more time, even with a Roost, we die.  I do the only thing left, and bring in Mabosstiff.  Fun fact: did you know that Leech Seed is transferred by Baton Pass?  This game is actually stupid.  Mabosstiff with +3 does not one-shot Bxcalibur.  But the defense boosts combined with its attack drop off Play Rough allows it to survive just fine.  And so, success.  First try.  Levels are 53-55.

Vs. Geeta Alright, time to see if Geeta can beat the allegations.

So, Espathra one-shot my Brambleghast with an immediate crit.  It is, of course, faster than Mabosstiff despite the Jolly nature, so Mabosstiff is down too.  It is only when I go to Garganacl that I realize...I should’ve just led Garganacl.  It took Lumina Crash like no one’s business.  Avalugg comes in and tries to beat me at my own Body Press game.  But I have Recover and Rocky Helmet, so she’s welcome to try.  Garganacl completely walls it, and we get to +6 defense with only 30 damage.  Veluza came in and bless it did it try.  But +6 defense just walled it too soundly.  We ended that fight with only 3 damage.  We healed, girl.  Kingambit is sadly quad weak to Fighting.  So that goes about as well as you’d expect.  So finally, it’s Gogoat’s turn.  It gets off one Bulk Up before needing to Horn Leech.  Horn Leech recovers like nothing, because it deals nothing, and Rocky Helmet hurts it.  Glimmora enters with special attack to capitalize on that Lumera Crash, and does get the KO.  Which is dangerous because frankly, we’ve been brutalized so bad from that opening crit and bullshit that there’s not exactly much left of the team.  Rabsca makes an attempt to get Brambleghast back in, but at half HP it’s not enough.  Dudunsparce manages to Agility pass to Quaquaval, who thankfully resists Rock, but couldn’t pass along a Coil boost due to the offensive pressure Glimmora has.  Blessed be, she relies on Dazzling Gleam when I Tera, so despite Quaquaval continuing to be a failure and missing the KO, we manage to win anyway.  Closer than I’d like, admittedly.

Vs. Nemona Alright Dudunsparce.  We’re gonna aim to just obliterate this girl.  Just end her entire life.  Lycanroc isn’t that scary of a-oh god a crit right away.  Okay.  Okay, this is fine, we can salvage this.  I have two Agility boosts and a Coil on Quaquaval, all we need is to get a full KO on Pawmot with Quaquaval’s Aqua Step, and we’ll be fi-oh who am I kidding, it’s Quaquaval, it always fails me.  EXCEPT THIS TIME WHEN IT SOMEHOW DIDN’T.  So okay, we might have this.  Even her Dudunsparce got 2HKO’d despite the Coil, and Orthworm despite all appearances to the contrary.  The train stops at Goodra, though.  Ice Spinner couldn’t take it out, and Orthworm’s bullshit crit on Body Press really kinda hosed us.

...anyway, Rabsca, if you would?  Quaquaval’s back in action...but somehow, is slower than Goodra.  I just.  I love how Quaquaval can’t outspeed a damn thing.  Including fucking Skeledirge, who I know for a fact is slow as dirt.  Thankfully, Mabosstiff and Brambleghast were.  So, we had Garganacl hit it with the Salt Cure, then Crunch and Phantom Force.  First try.  Weaker than Larry.  Levels 54-56.

For anyone who wants to keep the tally: all gyms beaten first try; Rika, Hassel, Geeta, and Nemona beaten first ry, Poppy got one win, Larry got three.  E4 Larry is the strongest.  Even though I would’ve beaten him first try if I apparently hadn’t gotten myself distracted by something and manually switched in Quaquaval instead of using Baton Pass.  I still don’t know what happened there.  I wound up looking up his team, and there is no Haze, so I legitimately just fucked up that hard.

Next time, it’s Area Zero and continuing the attempt at a complete dex.  I do not want to do the complete dex thing, given Slowking and Palafin, but I’ll do my best. 

[bluerosejuliet]

ooohh I can't wait to read the nest few scenes you have planned but okay so I guess the HP AU has Polin endgame but I really hope that even though James and Pen break up they still get to be really close besties and still hang out from time to time because imagine Colin coming back years later seeing them platonically firt bantering with eachother knwoing they dated and just be completely filled and become more unhinged with jealousy because "damn it WHY ARE TOU ALWAYS WITH MY PEN?!?!" all the while James is purposely doing all these to get back at Colin because "HOW DARE HE HURT MY ANGELIC RED HEAD BESTIE. ITS WANDS AT DAWN BRIDGERTON!!!"

Oh Colin and James do end up in a sudden duel when Colin attacks him the summer before Penelope and Eloise's seventh year which lead to Colin and Penelope's huge row where they didn't speak for seven years.

James is completely on his girlfriend's side. Colin was a huge prick and James probably could have kicked his butt in the duel had Phillip and Penelope not run to intervene. As they grow older though, he knows a part of Penelope misses the friendship she and Colin had and thinks about asking his fiancee if she wants to reach out to him to invite him to their wedding.

Michael though charming, is 100% team Penelope and James. Penelope's like his sister and he knows his mother would adopt her like she did Phillip in a heartbeat (he's seen the papers people, he knows she has them!) Like Phillip, he's dating a Bridgerton so he's polite but doesn't really talk to Colin much, preferring to talk to Eloise or her younger siblings or charm Violet. The only reason Michael didn't step in as James second for the sudden duel was that he was sneaking Francesca back into her room at Aubrey Hall via a broom and her window. They heard the commotion coming from outside and Francesca just grabbed him and threw him in her closet, thinking Anthony found out Eloise and Penelope helped sneak her out the night before. Or worse that seen her pull Michael into her room for a "quick" goodbye kiss before he had to go. Look she'd waited years for Michael Stirling to see her as more than his cousin John's best friend and she was not about to let her brother kill her new boyfriend when they'd only gotten together less than nine hours. Thankfully Anthony was to busy trying to wrangle his third youngest sibling from killing James Potter.

Phillip and Colin have a strained relationship for a bit due to Marina being pregnant with George's babies in seventh and then his brother being found dead a month after he'd gone missing in December. But since Eloise and Phillip start dating towards the end of sixth year, they tolerate each other. In fact, he's pretty sure Eloise is more mad at Colin than he is, even after all these years.

"He punched you Phillip!"

"Because he thought my brother had run out on Marina and I was hiding him."

"That's no excuse!"

"Yes, yes. But you and James did come to my rescue rather quickly. I think that was the moment I realized that I had fallen for you."

"Because I hexed my brother?"

"No, because you noticed the plants he ruined in the process and yelled at him about it. Then you spent the next hour trying to fix them."

Look I'm not going to spoil too much but around the time Penelope and James are 24, is when the EVENT happens that will impact everyone around them.

All I can say is that Penelope and James are happily engaged at the time and no one could have foreseen what was to happen. If they had, this story would have had a very different ending!

Keep the asks coming folks! It helps drive inspiration for not just this AU but my others as well.

[felikatze]

Feli's Binding Blade Blind Faux Ironman is COMPLETE

and by "faux" i mean there were cases i didn't deliberatley reset but instead ragequit and i also just restarted chapters when roy beefed it because i'm a pussy

anyway.

SURVIVAL RANK E BABEYYYYYYYYYY

out of all of the dead. i have one burning question

how the fuck did lalum survive chapter 21

she got surrounded by wyverns but they just didnt attack her. was it bcuz their hit rate was 0? but enemies love attacking lugh when they have a hitrate of 0. good for her ig, you go girl, live!!

LET US THANK THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND:

ALLEN!!! With maxed out attack, incredible defense, high speed and skill, as well acess to the full weapon triangle and amazing HP, Allen is the unit with the most battles, the most kills, and the singlehanded savior of this shitshow of a challenge run.

Without him, I'd be dead many times over. He had higher stats than Perceval when I recruited him in ch15, and this trend kept up because Perceval's level ups were garbage.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

LUGH!! The best mage of this run. He maxed his speed INCREDIBLY fast, and became basically unhittable to everything. Place him on a forest tile, and the hit rate is zero. His high speed, 1-2 weapon range, and high magic also meant he blasted everything into oblivion on counterattack. In chapter 21, he held off half the wyvern reinforcements all by himself cuz none of them could touch him. Get Aircalibur'd, idiot.

ZEISS!! My only decent flyer because Shanna is the only pegasus i recruited! Instead of promo'ing instantly as I did Melady (much to my regret cuz she was not useful except for ferrying), I threw Allen at Narcian's runesword till it broke, and got him to lv16 before promoting. Though not as busted as the former two, he still held his own. With a Shield of Delphi stolen off Narcian, he had really damn good defense. Though there were many occasions he only survived because a 60% attack missed. You are one lucky bastard.

PERCEVAL!!! After the death of Noah and Jerrot, Perceval's recruitment was a light on the horizon. Finally I had another good paladin, even if it took Noah's sacrifice to figure out you recruit him with Lalum. Though he wasn't as good as Allen, he still held his own in every situation, and even landed the killing blow on Zephiel with Mallet. Thank you king.

SUE!!!! Rounding out the unbeatable death squad, Sue was the sole living archer for a GOOD chunk of the game. When Wolt died and later Shin, she was the one to snipe foes, to slay wyverns in a heartbeat, and land some sick crits with a Killer Bow. Not a solo destroyer like her companions, she was nonetheless an invaluable asset.

it was this squad of five that carried my ass through every map, with support from various healers (mainly Saul and Celica, later joined by Raigh, Niime and Lugh himself). Whittling down bosses, holding off hordes of enemies, somehow preventing Lalum from dying five times over, and finally taking the throne; I thank ye, my scrimblos.

now it is time. to honor the fallen.

unlike lalum, these two did not survive same turn wyvern reinforcements <3

just like him. but he was dead weight anyway so

i dont even remember how these two beefed it. i DO remember recruiting perceval in ch15 and then noah died and going eh. i have perceval now its fine. OH YEAH CH18 WAS THE SACAE MAP RIGHT? lot got skewered by archers

classic case of "i put too much faith in her def stat" with echidna. fir got crit to death in retribution for killing rutger back in ch9

honestly if you give me a lv1 shaman in a fog of war map with wyverns how was she supposed to live

Shin tragically died escorting Astore to some treasure as i camped the boss because of sudden reinforcements <3 Astore survived because i seized in time <3 jerrot died of old age ig

fog of war casualties <3 again rutger got crit by fir and lilina was killed by Suddenly Pirates

alas tumblr mobile's image cap.

Deke: died tragically to a crit in ch8. first loss i was truly upset by. deke my man.

Wolt: died to archers in ch7. i think. i had Sue so whatever

Elen: beefed it in ch12 but she was obsolete when Lugh promoted anyway

Wade: killed in ch3. First death of the run. I was very whatever about it.

FINAL DEATH COUNT: 16

This is without units who died of non-recruitment, such as Gonzales, Klein, and many others.

SURVIVAL RANK: E

conclusion: god i had a ton of fun with this game, even when it threw some garbage at me. The many same turn reinforcements, the fog of war maps, the sheer size of every single chapter, and Horse Emblem. The atrocious hitrates on everything and everyone, enemy and ally alike.

I definetly played too conservatively in the beginning. Yeah, i treated units like they were more expendable, but i did NOT use all my good items, which is a huge mistake in retrospect. What really taught me this was that one Sacae map with two Bolting mages camping in the walls, who sniped Roy. I came back, equipped with my own Bolting and a Silence staff, readily prepared. Revenge was glorious.

I obviously didn't get the true ending, with how many plot important characters died. My only legendary weapon, besides the ones Yoder yeets at you (thank you for the Mallet, Zephiel would've taken five years otherwise), was Durandal. I got none of the other ones, either cuz I missed turn counts or had dead required units. I'll for sure go back and try again, this time while looking shit up.

I very notably played this entirely blind. I didn't know shit. That's how me recruiting Perceval is a fucking miracle, cuz his goons surrounded Lalum, and I thought, goddamn, let's try it. Twas sheer coincidence.

This was my first brush truly experiencing the permadeath mechanic. Yeah, i played SoV on classic, but with Mila's Timewheel? Nobody ever died. It was really fun to just revel in my mistakes. I reset more often toward the endgame (ch22 took me a couple attempts), but it was still a great experience to just. Take the loss and move on. To think, what now? But, well, Lugh and Allen were unkillable anyway.

Well, no, actually, they very much were. Even though they were my juggernauts, it's not to the degree of later FE games. Lugh sweeping is definetly not comparable to say, Dimitri in FE3H, or Morgan in Awakening. No matter how good they were, I still had to pay attention to keep them alive. It was a fun tightrope to walk.

All in all, great game! I'm really glad I gave it a try! I didn't talk story much, cuz, yknow, it's pretty basic, but I did like it. Zephiel's backstory and the mystery surrounding the dragons were done well enough.

TL;DR: Roy is our boy.

[these-detestable-hands]

i do want to thank you for inspiring me to do this, i've written up almost fourteen pages of notes and im not even done yet. anyway, presenting chapter four

Chapter Four:

Opens in The Far Harbour, which is notably not a town (there's a tavern so that you can choose to do this chapter when you want but you can encounter enemies and shit)

Aestia comments a lot about missing Lylah but soldiers onward

Not much to do beforehand, so travel through the route straight to the entrance of…

The Fourth Dungeon: The Masterless Wood 

Largest dungeon in at least Aestia's story, maybe the game (I dunno I'm not actually making the damn thing)

I have genuinely no idea what its gonna look like but I want it to have a crazy wacky puzzle

Probably gonna include a six-springs-two-poison type thing

Not sure on the exact details but it's gonna be wacky

Enemies: Howlers and Revenants and Remnants oh my

I WISH THIS WAS LONGER THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A COOL DUNGEON BUT I DONT HAVE IDEAS

AAAAAAAAA

Reaching the end of the dungeon, Aestia finds a clearing with a small cottage worked into the trees

In front of it is a small campfire, with Sir Eldroy and an incredibly old woman speaking to each other

Sir Eldroy is claiming to have doubts with his path, is clearly glancing back at the house in the trees again and again

Aestia bursts in to stop them, Eldroy turns immediately, kicks Aestia in the chest, and summons a circle of flame around them, locking The Great Seer out

The Great Seer screams at him, calling him a liar, as we cut into…

The Fourth Boss: Sir Eldroy Herres

Summons in three lackeys at the start of the fight: more Greater Embers (they don’t block weaknesses they’re just nuisances enough to need to be dealt with

Eldroy starts with a shield that makes him immune to stat debuffs, will disappear after the first break

Also has a Sacred Slash attack

Can hit a lot harder with fire attacks, has some AOE bullshit

Can also inflict Silence and Terror

Maybe has an attack that specifically only work against Silenced/Terrified targets (think of Father’s insta-kill attack that only works if the target has that blood effect or Kaldena’s insta-kill that only works on Blinded targets)

Boost mode effect: kills all Embers like the Tormented Blaze fight, displays the message “Sir Eldroy is becoming filled with light”

Boost mode attack: Ending Strike (one sword strike, lowers elem. def., one fire attack, single target, inflicts Terror on whole party with no save against it)

After beating him up enough, cuts out of the fight into another cutscene

“ENOUGH, heretic. You have walked too far in defiance of the word of the Pontifex, and you will pay the price. Mother Orsa, Father Finis, grant me now the power to strike down Aestia Trititaka, APOSTATE OF THE SACRED FLAME!”

Reaches and grabs a pendant like the archbishop, smashes in on the ground

Circle of flames shrinks to barely fit the two, Sir Eldroy becomes wreathed in flame

Cuts back into a battle sequence, fighting against… 

The Second Phase: Eldroy, Ablaze

Before the battle officially starts there’s a small dialogue segment of Aestia being absolutely FLOORED by this

Eldroy looks INSANE, he’s covered in green fire, eyes glowing, broadsword looking as though it might melt any second, standing stock-straight

Summons two more lackeys at the start of this phase: Perfected Embers

These are the first actually dangerous forms of Ember, these guys can do real damage

Eldroy has ten shields and regenerates two each turn

No more immunity to debuffs only PAIN

A small HP drain is in effect as well (there is FIRE)

Has one attack themed after Orsa and one after Finis, those are the ones that get animated sprites

After the first break has only eight shields, then six (will sit at that for the rest of the battle if you keep breaking them)

Boost mode message: “Eldroy is grasping at divinity!”

Boost mode attack: Smite of the Ending (same as Ending Strike but also inflicts Silence)

After the fight, Eldroy is about to start on a monologue when he stops, as if looking at something directly in front of him (some of these mannerisms will NOT work with octopath graphics but I care not)

“Pontifex… I… the mission can still go on without issue. I have not failed you. Fabian has likely completed his objective yet. I have… no… Pontifex! Your Holiness! Please! Have mercy! HAVE MERCY!”

Eldroy is seemingly sucked away by fire (not like the archbishop, he had a burnt corpse), completely gone

Aestia enters one of those black-screen fugue states and promptly passes out from shock and exhaustion

Wakes up in bed with The Great Seer

Loredrop time!!!!

General gist: The Great Seer insists upon Aestia first-naming her (her name is Aschei, thanks for asking), drops a ton of shit about Orsa and Finis

The pontifex came to ask a question of Aschei a while back

Her main question: why would they create a world if that world included death and suffering? 

Aschei was unable to answer and then-Sister Victoria Inaméa stormed off

Aestia and Aschei pool their knowledge and conclude that the Pontifex is somehow trying to harness the power of The Maker Gods to eliminate death and/or suffering from the world

The purpose of palimpsests remains mysterious

Aestia explains the situation with the mysterious figure, who Sir Eldroy called Fabian

Aschei is mortified, goes to check her library, and finds a book missing from it

It turns out that Aestia has been out for TWO DAYS

She asks why Aschei didn’t wake her sooner, Aschei says it was to recover her strength

“I can see it: you are a great woman. Yours is a soul that shines with the light of many stars, and I would not let you go unless I thought you would be able to walk away from the pontifex safely. But you are ready. Go.”

“Like the stars… Lylah said the same thing…”

“Lylah?” [pause] “Hmm, I see. She is very important to you, yes?”

“I think of her every day.”

Aschei directs Aestia to The Spire of Beginnings, in the Peaklands, where the land of [continent name not found] was first touched by Orsa and Finis

“Go, my child, and take great care to stay safe. If not for this old woman, do it for that Lylah of yours. I’m sure she would like it.”

I'M SHIT TING MYSELF DOES LYLAH COME BACK LATER OR WHAT AAAAAAAAAAA IT'S SO GOOD I'M VERY INVESTED. ALSO WHAY THE SHIT ELDROY THAT'S NOT VERY EPIC GAMER OF YOU. ASCHEI IS SILLY THOUGH I LOVE HER

[tarotcard0]

Dragon Quest 3's Stats continue to be weird.

Oh my GOD why are mages so bad it should be illegal for a class to be this shitty

Pondering starting a new game with different classes, Mages really are that bad and I’d rather not just get a new guy or wait until they’re level 20 and I can get to this game’s equivalent to Alltrades Abby.

Mages have no Hit Points, and do no damage, so what do Mages have over physical fighters? /gen The answer isn’t their ability to hit multiple targets at once, physical classes can do that just as well with Whips and Boomerangs, and don’t have to worry about “ammo” like mages do.

The answer could probably be some version of the fact that Magic attacks aren’t effected by the Defense stat, which makes Magic ostensibly useful against armored enemies early on. Unfortunately, Wisdom doesn’t effect the power of spells, but rather is to MP what stamina is to HP, simply effecting Maximum MP. So a physical class will eventually do enough damage to bypass armor entirely, one-shotting old armored foes and leaving the mage, who would have to cast at least twice, in the dust as their spells do comparatively and exponentially less and less damage until they fade into irrelevancy. There’s also the fact that there’s a Magic Defense stat exclusive to enemies and hidden from the player (I’m sorry, did you expect this RPG, literally a game about manipulating numbers in your favor, to tell you what all the numbers were?), and my god does it hurt mages when enemies have that. Rather than reducing damage from Magic, Magic defense is a chance that the enemy will block magic entirely, meaning damaging magic can now miss, making its one useful trait, the fact that it can hit dodgy enemies, completely worthless. Couple this with the fact that spells take MP to cast, and the only means of restoring MP in the middle of a dungeon are limited, and you’ve got a recipe for a team of 4 fighters.

[darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght]

Chapter 14- Part 6

I want to put this to sleep with Grass Whistle, but I’m worried about any Flying-type moves it might have, so…let’s switch in to Caldera to lower its HP most safely.

Oh, it knows Double Team- more Evasion strats? That’s fine, I was gonna use Clear Smog anyways.

Or…well, I can’t keep Caldera in because Air Slash did more than I expected, so I should switch in to someone else. Glare, probably?

WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE PURSUIT??

Oh, you are SO gonna pay for that!! By being caught like a normal wild Pokémon!!

The plan now is to swap between Glare and Riptide to lower its Attack, and use Scary Face to lower its Speed for good measure. It keeps spamming Double Team to raise its Evasion, but there’s nothing we can do about that now with Caldera fainted.

But even still…I don’t think we can Grass Whistle it now, not with that Evasion. Try paralyzing it with Glare™, maybe? It’s not Thunder Wave, so…

WHAT DO YOU MEAN?? IT’S IMMUNE TO GLARE™??

(Future edit: So, the reason I made the distinction that Glare™ was not Thunder Wave was that I was under the impression that Electric-types could get paralyzed by other means, but were immune to Thunder Wave paralysis. No- I was thinking of Ground-types when I made that decision, but Electric-types are different. As of Gen VI, Electric Pokémon cannot be paralyzed at all. I...forgot about that.)

Okay, back to Riptide…

Chip it down a bit with Water Gun, oh my GOSH Air Slash is still doing a lot- uuuuh, try Prong?

Even with its maximized Double Team, a Bug Bite should deal enough to get it into the red.

WHAT?? HOW DID THAT KNOCK IT OUT!? FLYING IS SUPPOSED TO RESIST BUG!!

Okay, second attempt- 

We start with Caldera this time in order to do Clear Smog stuff early, but even before that we use Harden to improve her survivability.

Now, even Air Slash shouldn’t do much against-

…Ooor…not…?

(Future edit: If you couldn’t tell by now, I mistakenly thought Air Slash was a physical move. Needless to say, it’s not, it’s another special move, like Air Cutter. That’s why I was relying on Glare’s Intimidate throughout all of this, and why I thought Harden would do anything here.)

Alright, let’s just repeat what we did last time with Glare and Riptide-

Water Gun for some chip, DON’T use Bug Bite this time, then send in Caldera again-

And with that Clear Smog, we send in Riptide to slow it down again so Blizzard can put it to sleep without getting Air Slashed! We do that, and as long as nothing else goes terribly wrong-

OH, YOU CHEEKY FLYING SQUIRREL! You run me out of Fresh Waters (yes, I used up my Fresh Waters healing throughout all of this), then you knock out my starter!? You’re going to sleep whether you like it or not!

…Oh. Oh, wait, oh no- what have I done!? Emolga won’t live a turn of hail damage! GET IN THE GREAT BALL RIGHT NOW IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!

Thank every and all gods that exist in the Pokémon world, goodness gracious…

All of that for a new Pokémon…gosh! Nuzzle, Double Team, Pursuit, Air Slash- who allowed this creature to be released into the world!?

What in the world do we name this? What kind of name does one give to such an absolute menace? Wait- I know!

Pyrite! Gold or gold-colored things could be associated with electricity (just look at the Alolan Geodude line and Mt. Layuda in Guardian Signs), and pyrite being, well, “fool’s gold”- I dunno, a troll of a mineral seems like a fitting namesake for such an irritating little guy.

Well now I have an actual reason to go to the Pokémon Center a bit early…

Wow- even when the world is crumbling around her, Nurse Joy is still there to care for Trainers’ Pokémon, now that’s dedication. But who’s that guy trying to clip through the wall in the corner?

Ah, the trauma, understandable.

Now I gotta go all the way back to Obsidia Slums to buy more Fresh Water- geez…

Anyways, NOW we can keep going down this road to see if there’s anything interesting.

I mean, that’s one thing, but what’s more interesting is there’s one of the missing cops down there! Past this tree!

…Oh- well, that’s just unfair. We can’t Cut this vine out of the way- I guess we can’t free this guy until we deal with the PULSE? Or get that item on the other side? Man…

And it looks like there’s nothing more on this side, either- at least, nothing while the PULSE is still active somewhere. Let’s check that building we passed by earlier, see what’s in there.

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