/monster/ - The Last Bastion of Romance

>Autistic planning,weighting your options and limited resource management.

>Wild but partially correct mass guessing on what might happen.

Yes. This fuels me. I can feel the power of the warp overtaking me.

>>344735

Maybe. But we can't be sure it won't kill her. Why take that chance unnecessarily when there's an alternative available that lets us keep the overdrive as a trump card?

>>344948

See >>336908

By the way, the not-overdrive plan can still do spirit damage if you really want to see it done to Blitz. Just add firefly oil. Still probably less costly than a full overdrive, and more targeted.

Bernsen quickly shook his head and turned his eyes away from the suddenly regrown appendage. He still felt slightly lightheaded and his thoughts were dull, but he understood that time was of the essence. He had to kill Forsythe and quickly, before she could finish channeling her spell.

The man slowly crept forward through the darkness, his eyes locked to the exposed back of the gazer. He could hear the noise of the battle ahead, Skorne was not down for the count quite yet, but the electrical discharge from the magical spear must have scrambled the enchantments on her prosthetics and she was now half crouching on the floor, trying to defend herself at a massive disadvantage. Fortunately, she was not alone anymore and had only to fend off the knight in the scaled armor.

Blitzkrieg, in his blind rage did not quite realize the folly of ordering Forsythe to change her tactics on the fly like that and was now cursing loudly as he dodged and weaved from column to column, in his primary body, to avoid getting completely incinerated by the overpowering rain of fire that was crashing down around him from above. As soon as her eyesight had returned to her, the witch immediately pulled her broom out to claim the higher ground advantage and attack the assassin with all of her fury.

The limitations of Blitzkrieg's DIY upgrades to his rifle became readily apparent when it’s limited range, coupled with the long cooling period of the mana capacitor could do nothing to fend off the nimble dwarf. Trying to use his stash of thunderclay under the current condition would be very foolish as well. Even his shadow step ability was only useful for dodging, when he was unable to physically avoid the streams of flames and brimstone directed at him.

Of course he could easily snipe the dwarf out of the air and he had the perfect weapon for it. Unfortunately, the remains of Gauff had his hands full trying to tear a very large, angry and savage lion off his body and his massive bow was laying on the floor, completely abandoned.

“Damn it Forsythe! Hurry up!” The assassin shouted with anger at the gazer but immediately regretted his decision when the dwarf above stopped in her tracks and looked into the direction he was screaming at.

The wraith’s eyes widened, bearing a new expression that was unfamiliar to see on his dry, bony face. Concern.

Sahra was impulsive, passionate and stubborn, a prime specimen of her race. But despite her specialization in fire magic, she was not a hothead. She was smart and a quick thinker too and no matter how much she wanted to burn this shady son of a bitch that was running away from her now, she was not so stupid as to single him out while someone else was casting some sort of overpowered, dark ritual spell on the other side of the room.

She darted into the opposite direction without uttering a single word, raising one of her hands above her head and channeling another flame lance in it while clutching the broom with the other.

The gazer was standing amidst the carnage of the fight, her clothing flaring up around her body from the intense magical energies that surrounded her. All of her eyes were focused on the black integrity core held in her hands and her lips flapped rapidly as she chanted some complex incantation into the divine magical implement, completely obvious to her surroundings.

Another bright flash of orange light illuminated the catacombs as the dwarf launched another spell, the condensed column of fire spinning through the air like a drill with a roar as the flames burned a pathway directly at the gazer.

Feeling the sudden wave of heat approaching her, Forsythe briefly suspended her casting, her primary eye glancing up and widening as it saw the rapidly approaching flame lance. A massive figure suddenly leaped in front of her, holding the wolf pattern covered shield and the spell impacted against it with a loud fizzling noise, drilling into the enchanted piece of metal and blasting sparks and heat everywhere, but also rapidly shrinking in the process until it vanished with a pop and dispersed into a rippling cloud of raw mana.

Despite having not one, but two gaping holes in it’s torso, the reanimated chantry knight wielding the shield and greatsword was still on it’s feet, albeit now only wielding the shield, as the flames, that were even now eating away at him, had already burned the majority of the right side of his body off.

The dwarf clicked her tongue in annoyance and slowly did a half circle around the raised platform, looking for an opening, but instead her eyes widened in surprise when she noticed someone slowly sneaking behind the gazer and the burning knight.

“Forsythe, are you alright?” The assassin’s voice asked tensely.

“Yes. I am almost done. I just need one more minute.” The gazer quickly looked back down with a slight blush on her cheeks. “Thank y-”

With a sickening sound of tearing flesh, an arrow shot out from her chest with a burst of blood. The monster let out a weak gasp, shuddered and coughed out some blood. She then lowered her head to look down at her body in shock, the pain not setting in quite yet, due to the near surgical precision with which the arrow had pierced her body. It left a perfect hole in her chest cavity, having entered into the space in-between her ribs, piercing the phylactery heart containing her lover’s soul and leaving through another similar opening on the front side of her body, all the while not shattering a single bone or striking at any other vital organs save for her left lung.

“Ah…I…” The grip on the integrity core in her hands slipped and it fell down on the ground, the magical energies swirling around it quickly dispelling. Blood dripped loudly from the gaping wound on the floor with large, fat droplets and the gazer shakily put her right hand over it, choking and coughing out more blood with a look of horror in her eyes before her knees shook again and she collapsed on on them, suddenly unable to support herself anymore.

“M-mako?” She wimpered weakly and looked at the burning figure of the knight standing over her as the shield slipped out from it’s hand and fell on the ground with a loud metallic clatter followed by the knight collapsing on top of it, his body completely consumed with flames.

“Mako?” The gazer repeated and looked at where the Balrog was to see the other body, clad in scale mail and wielding a spear, suddenly crumple and collapse like a puppet that had all of it’s strings cut off in a one fell swoop.

“Mako!” Her voice grew in desperation as she sharply looked at where Gauff’s body was fighting Zapp, but the hunter laid still as well, with the lion sniffing his remains suspiciously.

“MAKO!” The gazer shrieked, all of her eyes widening and searching for the assassin. She quickly found him, the black leather clad figure laying flat on it’s back near the base of one of the columns, his weapons spread out on the floor around him.

“No, no, no!” Her voice grew in desperation. “Mako! Say something! Please! This can’t be happening! Not like this! Not when we were so close!” She started to shriek and looked down at her wound again before starting to spasm.

>Hide deactivated.

“It’s over Forsythe.” The warrior seemed to appear out of nowhere form the darkness behind her, holding his bow in one hand. His skin looked deathly pale and his right eye seemed to be glowing purple in the darkness of the underground. “He is dead. For real this time.”

“B-bearson? But-” She turned her head around to look at the dangling form of the mistress hanging down from the ceiling. “You…!”

Everyone quickly moved in, surrounding the monster with their weapons held out.

{Now my son! Hurry! End her life before she can retaliate!} The man heard a powerful presence in his mind and had to focus all of his willpower not to decapitate the gazer before him.

“I see. So that’s how.” The lorekeeper looked down at the floor before her where the black integrity core was.

The warrior almost cursed and let the presence in his mind overtake him at that moment, but a tiny figure quickly zoomed over the floor, grabbing the gem and flying back to the witch.

“Got it!” Kenzie shouted in a high pitched voice, raising the divine implement over her head. The warrior let out a strained sigh of relief at that.

This did not seem to phase the gazer whatsoever however, she merely continued to stare at the empty spot on the ground like nothing changed.

“Don’t try to do anything stupid.” The dwarf threatened her while holding a fireball aloft over her form. “I am seriously not in the mood for any more bullshit right now.”

The gazer closed all of her eyes and shuddered before laughing sadly and shaking her head. “I will not. It doesn’t matter. None of this matters anymore.”

“Are you surrendering then?” The lion asked and cocked his head.

The gazer slowly touched her open wound and smiled faintly. “For what it’s worth, this is not how I wanted things to go, but this world is cruel and unfair, most of it’s inhabitants only concerned about gaining more power and fortune.”

The woman let out a shuddering sigh as tears began to streak down her cheeks. “Emiliya is in my office at the embassy. Among my luggage is a bag of holding with a large opening. She is inside of it, along with the one who plagued your home for generations.”

The gazer clutched the wound in her chest and closed her eyes even tighter. “I am sorry Bearson. I know you you didn’t deserve any of this and must have a lot of questions for me but I can’t-” She choked. “I can’t let him go by himself to suffer for his sins alone, I must come with him. Good bye.”

The warrior inhaled sharply and tried to reach out for the gazer, but it was too late. With a piercing screech of dark magic, her back suddenly exploded out from the force of the spell, eviscerating her insides. She coughed once and fell on the floor, dead.

“Well.” The dwarf blinked and slowly lowered her hand, dispelling her magic. “Shit. There goes our intelligence gold mine. She must have been pretty god damn loyal to that death cult to kill herself off like that to avoid capture.”

The warrior looked at the lorekeeper’s still form and shook his head, reaching into his beard.

“Bernsen, what happened to you earlier?” The lion asked, sounding concerned. “I saw you get dragged into that thing and our familiar link still seems to be suppressed, even though the dark priestess is dead.”

“And what happened to you? Your face! And the eye!?” Sahra pointed at him with disbelief.

“Just a minute. I was just about to take care of it.” The man added grimly ignoring the increasingly anxious growing voice in his head. He pulled the wooden box holding their potions out and opened with a click. “In hindsight, I should have done this in advance, but I didn’t think I would be affected.”

“Affected… by what?” The balrog cautiously asked.

“Bernie? Are you ok?” The fairy fluttered closer to the warrior with concern in her voice.

“I’ll be in a minute. Keep an eye out for her. We are not done yet.” The man reached into the box and pulled a syringe full of clear liquid out.

“Wait, you mean THAT!?” The dwarf sharply looked at the ceiling where the mistress, or at least a part of her, was looking down at them silently.

The warrior did not reply and instead jabbed the needle into his neck, where one of his major arteries was. Normally, a very dangerous thing to do, but with his natural high speed regeneration, he could get away with it.

And then it happened again. The pain.

The empty syringe fell on the ground and the glass shell shattered. The warrior roared in pain and clutched his head, but more bizarrely, the dangling form of the fungal abomination began to scream and viciously spasm and all the growths in the massive chamber pulsated, wildly shriveling and expanding rapidly like a single living organism reeling from incredible agony.

The pale flesh forming his face and restored limb began to bubble up and distort, the skin swelled and ripped itself apart. His fingers began to spasm and twist in unnatural directions, the fragile bones composing the skeleton within breaking.

And then the skin began to peel off. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster until it completely lost it’s physical density and started to drip and pour off his body. The man doubled over and vomited viciously, the same bubbly white formless mush being ejected from his body with a splatter, while everyone else stared in horror, unable to comprehend what the hells was happening before them.

Bernsen gasped a few times, blinking with his one eye and supporting himself with his right hand. His face was gone again and all the aches and burns of his earlier battles had returned.

{Why, my son?} The voice called out and the dangling figure shook and turned to face him. {Why do you reject my gifts?}

The man spat out once more and straightened out, addressing his stunned tribe. “She just tried to assume control of my body by merging with me I think.”

{Zapp can you hear me now?} The warrior then asked quickly through his familiar link.

{Loud and clear. Good to have you back. Care to explain what just happened in detail?} The lion nodded and the warrior felt a great deal of relief through their link.

“In a moment Zapp.” The warrior chose to reply verbally. “First off, what did you do with Maxie?” He then turned his head upwards with a snarl.

The mistress looked down upon the group with her featureless mouthless and noseless face, the only humanoid feature left being her purple eerie and piercing eyes. {If you mean your armor my son, then I simply chose to borrow it.}

“Excuse me?” The warrior blanched in disbelief at the boldness of her admission.

{I am unable to move by myself easily you see. I would have prefered to have a living woman as a vessel, but this will have to do for the time being.} The false fungal goddess explained matter of factly {I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help my son. If it was not for you, then I would have been forced to act as a slave to the dark priestess and her masters, forcing to birth them my children to be used as soldiers in their agenda. But no more. With her life ended, the covenant that she forced me into is over and I am no longer bound to her will as her thrall. I am free to act on my own.}

“You are not going anywhere.” The warrior pointed his sword at the abomination, the beidhander bursting to life with a powerful flame of it’s enchantment. “There is no one to help you leave this time.”

{Do you truly hate me so, my son? Even though it was my essence which gave birth to you? My power that allowed you to raise so far above your enemies? My guidance that brought you here?}

“Stop calling me your son you wicked creature.” The warrior stepped forward, feeling enraged as ursa Major manifested next to him with a snarl. “I had only one mother and you are not her.”

{Even though I helped you best the dark priestess and her mate that had killed some of your closest friends? Is there truly nothing that I can do to earn your forgiveness and acknowledgment?} The mistress asked, sounding somber but the warrior knew better. Every word that came form this creature’s mouth was a lie shrouded with falsehoods and wrapped in fabrications.

“You want my forgiveness?” The warrior’s voice cracked. “How about giving me my real family back, huh? How about it? Can you do that?”

{Yes.} The mistress responded almost immediately and the warrior froze in his tracks with his mouth open.

~~~

The sun was slowly setting over the walls of the great city of Sanctiford. The palace in it’s center, laying in it’s very heart was quiet. Most of the staff was absent lately, with the increased security forcing frequent background checks on the workers. Very few passed them, but this was not a big deal, since none of the usual visitors were present, having been invited to the embassy or barred from entry until the situation would clear up.

A single armored figure sat on a chair with his legs crossed, leaning back and observing the sunset from the large open window in front of him as he waited. In his hand, he held a peculiar looking communion matrix, green in color and small in size, almost akin to a scrying bowl.

From his vantage point, he could see almost the entirety of Sanctiford spread out before him, being cast in the last few rays of the sun that descended over the horizon. The buildings, the river, the roads, the people and …the monsters.

The communion matrix in his hand flared to life softly.

“Green.” The graceful female voice asked. “We are nearly there. Are you and your men ready?”

“Of course. It’s almost time.” The man pulled out a gilded watch attached to a chain from his pocket. It said that it was three minutes before seven. “The sun is almost down. What about you? Are you ready?”

The voice coming from the communion matrix let out a mirthful giggle. “Of course. It is unfortunate that Reagan has failed, but so be it. Even with one of the key pieces missing, the ritual will be possible. I will await you at the temple of Solos as we agreed. Do not fail me.”

“Of course. I will be seeing you son my dear sister.” Nicholas Braun, the head of the King’s guard replied coolly and the implement in his hand went dark.

The former battle priest of the church of Solos looked outside once more, moving his eyes over the city and stood up, grabbing his helmet from the nearby table to put it on. Casting a deep black shadow on the wall in front of him, he opened the door and left the room. His steps echoed throughout the near empty palace, the usual patrols and guards protecting it strangely absent.

Within a couple minutes he stood up before the front doors of the palace and opened them, arriving before a sight of a few hundred men standing before the gate that lead into the city. Facing him in perfect even lines, they immediately straightened up and saluted him. Every single man under his command was present, save for those who were already in the city performing the final finishing touches of the plan. This was not a major amount by any means. Only three hundred people were on an active duty in the king’s guard, but this did not matter. Even back in the days when he was a member of the church militant order, it was always about quality over quantity. It was just The Order that took up every mongrel and piece of trash that would crawl to their front door in search of food and shelter and gave them a proud title of a “hero”.

But not the church. To become a member of the holy paladin order, you had to prove the strength of your faith without a shadow of a doubt. Train your body to become the perfect instrument of divine fury that would bring JUSTICE to the foul and wicked. Though few in number, each of these soldiers were worth ten of the bottom feeders that composed the order. And now, with their new divine blessing, they were worth a hundred of them.

Lord Braun raised his hand and the eye slits of his helmet flared with a faint green light, one that seemed to reflect in the eyes of the men before him. A strange, powerful aura seemed to permeate the area, the trees and the grass in the area growing more vibrant and powerful as a sudden streak of wind wildly shook their leaves.

“Brothers.” Nicholas began and raised his other arm, spreading them out in front of him. “Thank you for coming here, I can see that not a single one of you had chosen to turn his back on their faith, on their true mission. For years, we were forced to hide, to bend to the will of our mad king who would allow his land to be pillaged and raped by the foul parasites that we were sworn to protect humanity from. But tonight. Tonight, everything is going to change. We had to endure much, but this is the moment of truth. Tonight we will wash this holy city clean with the blood of the heretics and daemons who made their home in here. Return it to it’s pristine state. The royal bloodline had governed over our country for millennia and as humanity’s chosen champions, it’s our duty to uphold tradition and protect our culture. But in these exceptional circumstances, we must do what we must. Paladin primaris Victor may have turned his back on us, surrendered our legacy to that whore who dares to proclaim herself an ascendant! But the strength of our faith is unyielding! It shines as bright as the sun itself! And tonight our faith will shine it’s brightest! Lighting a path for humanity towards a brighter tomorrow!

Now my brothers! Go! Go and perform your sacred duty! Let no wicked or sinner any quarter! Do not let your sword arm falter for even a second, for our cause is righteous! Our beliefs just! We are merely humble servants performing the duty of the gods! So wills the great mother! The loyal wife of our lord and true king Solos! Deis Vult!”

“Deis vult! Deis Vult! Deis Vult!” The king’s guard chanted in perfect unison, their eyes flaring bright green. The gates leading outside opened and the garrison moved out, the horsemen taking the lead, followed by the heavily armored infantry, spreading out into the city that was completely unaware of the coming danger.

Lord Braun did not follow his men however, he instead turned around and entered the palace once more. His task was the greatest of all, he would have the honor to end the wicked mad king’s life and claim his crown for the true future ruler of Deleor. Himself.

~~~

The door in the basement of the temple opened with a creak, allowing a massive figure in red to step out. A single, red glowing eye shone from the slit of it’s helmet, it’s massive, bulky pauldrons barely fitting through the door.

It quickly walked up the steps, past all the dead priests and priestess laying on the floor and steps in puddles of their own blood. The main hall was deserted as well, showing signs of a recent slaughter.

“Help…” A weak voice called out from one of the benches, turning out to be a young woman in a white garb belonging to a hospitalier hiding underneath it and bleeding heavily from the gash over her abdomen. “P-please help me.”

The figure in red turned it’s head down and picked up the bench, easily throwing it aside to expose the woman. She must have somehow hid from the king’s guard members stationed here in advance and used her magic to sustain herself. Perfect.

The figure stepped over to the woman and took off it’s helmet, making the girl let out a terrified scream when instead of a head, a large white bundle of something came wriggling out from the armor and latched on to her.

~~~

“Hmm.” Sir Mathew looked at his pocket watch again and then looked over the embassy ballroom. The place was completely packed, but everything seemed to be in order, not that he doubted the prowess of Monster nation’s security. It was just that there was something odd in the air that made him feel anxious.

“And then pow!” The tarasque made an over the top motion mimicking a punch. “Slugged him right out of that stone giant he made!”

“Oh my goodness! How violent!” An old, important looking lady covered her mouth in surprise.

“Can monsters really do that? Grow up the size of a building? Not to say that you are lying miss Beatrix but…” A middle aged man holding a wine glass inquired.

“Nah, she totally did do that.” An old gentleman with white hair and beard answered and scratched his chin. “I’ve seen in it myself.”

“Oh that’s right lord Baha, you participated in that battle as well haven’t you?” The old noble woman asked and took a sip from her champagne glass.

“Well, participated is a strong word. The young lass here did most of the heavy lifting, I just told my girls to pitch in a little. I am a bit too old for this kind of action.” The old sailor chuckled and picked up an olive on a toothpick from a nearby table before placing it in his mouth.

“I have to say, it’s quite unusual to see a diplomat from the southern sea kingdom. This is quite an unprecedented occurrence.” A pudgy man nearby wiped some sweat off his brow. “I don’t show up in the capital too often, but I am pretty sure we have been an odds with you for as long as we were with the monster nation.”

“Well times are changing quickly nowadays.” Baha shrugged and flicked the toothpick left from the olive away. “With how friendly Deleor seems to be getting with the monster nation lately, I thought we should probably get in on that action too. You have done some pretty impressive stuff that we can’t even dream off back in Atlantis, that leyway system is a real beaut. I hope we can get some of these advancements as well in exchange for some of our more exotic goods.”

“Like the vast supplies of Orichalcum held at the ocean’s bottom?” Kaoku, the owner of the city’s casino raised her eyebrow curiously.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves there.” The sailor laughed nervously when the sahuagin next to him glared daggers at the raccoon who was now the kingdom’s primary food supplier in the war against Galmathoria.

“”Would you please tell a little bit about your country’s capital then lord Baha?” The old lady asked. “Your people are very secluded and the accounts of those lucky few who witnessed it have always seemed sketchy to me.”

“Of course, why not?” The sailor chuckled. “So as you all obviously can guess, it’s located deep under-”

Suddenly the earth shook and some powerful pulse flashed through the room, making everyone stumble and shout in surprise. The magitek lights near the ceiling flickered and shut down, casting the ballroom in pitch darkness. All hell broke loose.

~~~

All throughout the city, magical implements of all kinds began to shut down. Automatons stopped in their tracks and toppled over. Communion matrix communications went blank. Lights all around the city dimmed and turned off, casting the city in darkness. People using artificial prosthetics were suddenly unable to move them anymore, causing a mass panic.

No one understood what was happening, it was as if all magical energies in the city just up and vanished. The truth, of course, was more sinister in it’s nature ,as it always was. Four identical metallic and glass made devices activated on the four opposite corners of the city, set up on the top floors of the watchtowers lining the walls of the capital. The soldiers tasked with keeping watch there laid dead as members of the king’s guard descended the stairs to join their brothers who had already begun their purge throughout the city.

~~~

“What?” Bernsen’s voice felt hoarse in his throat. “What did you just say?”

{If you wish me to return the memories that I have stolen from your family and friends, I can do that.} The mutated matango replied descending closer to the ground where the warrior and his friends were.

“Y-you are lying! I do not believe you! You’ve erased everything!” The warrior’s voice cracked and he raised his weapons threateningly.

{I do not lie my son. And you should know better than to think that I would destroy something as valuable and important as my children’s memories. All of their experiences, all of their skills and abilities, they are all preserved inside of me. Down to the last detail. Information is the most valuable commodity, that’s what Minerva taught you, hasn’t she? This I agree with, all of my research and ambitions were based on discovering the solution to the question asked by Odin and Martel.} The bindings holding the mistress suddenly tore open, freeing her arms and she reached down with them. {And for that goal I have studied both monsters and men, reached deep into the limits of their bloodlines and essence, their memories are nothing but a drop in the ocean of vast knowledge that I have accumulated using the power of the Charter nexus for hundreds of years.}

The warrior suddenly began to feel lightheaded and his hands started to shake, not daring to admit to the sudden feeling of hope in his heart.

“And you are telling me.” He swallowed hard. “That you will just hand them over just like that, If I let you go, right?”

{I do not ask you to forgive me my son. I know you will not. Neither am I bargaining for my life, for it is not in peril. Even if you destroy this body, it will amount to nothing, for my soul lies elsewhere.} The mistress admitted quietly.

“The embassy.” The warrior recalled Forsythe’s parting words. “You, or whatever is left of the real you is there.”

{All I ask you is to not interfere. I am not so foolish as to openly oppose you, I have learned of your strength my son. You have grown far beyond any of my wildest expectations. All those essences you have claimed from countless other monsters have given you a power that I simply cannot match. I shall reclaim my source of life and quietly leave and if you wish so, I shall never seek you out or get in your way again. The conflict fought over those artifacts that gave birth to me…} The mistress slowly turned her head at the black integrity core held by the terrified looking Kenzie.

{Does not interest me. I have already extracted all the knowledge it held within it millennia ago back in the Black Forest and besides, without the power of the nexus to tap into it’s true power to shape the essence of monsters, it is worthless.}

The warrior swallowed hard, exchanging worried looks with his friends. He could not believe that he was actually considering her words.

{But I believe you might have more important things to concern yourself with. As we speak, the soldiers of this land’s chieftain lay waste to their own city. The greatest of this tribe’s hunters, Nicholas Braun wishes to slay his chief and take over his place and territory as the leader of the tribe. And there is more to it, even more enemies are approaching from the south, silently gliding along the bottom of the river’s bank, hidden from sight by the swift currents of the river running through the city. The enemy tribe known as Galmathoria will spring from the river using their metal rafts when the local tribemembers are done killing each other to lay waste to their camp and salt the earth so they may claim it’s territory as their own. And it’s leader, Dia will lead the attack to claim these gems you seek for herself, so she may use their power to unlock the true limits of the monster bloodline and become the true, pure embodiment of her race: great, terrible and invincible.

The dark priestess and her cohort wished to trick her, to steal her transformed body for themselves so that Mako the Hunter could finally have a vessel that would not decay and bring him endless agony with it.}

“Trick her? How?” The warrior blinked in disbelief at the sudden amount of information.

{The hunter known as Nicholas, Dia’s brother has crafted a weapon so terrible and evil that it can separate the essence of any living being from it’s body. Not even Dia’s transformed state will be able to protect her form it and once her body is devoid of any essence, Nicholas will take it for himself. By using the power of darkness that awakened in his heart when he was exposed to the black integrity core, he will take control of it and use it as a perfect weapon to enforce his rule with and destroy all who would dare to oppose his claim for leadership. The dark priestess learned the truth from him using her powers long ago and would have usurped his attempt if you hadn’t slain her.}

The warrior stared at the Mistress, unsure what to say.

{I will request it again my son. Let me leave in peace and you will never hear from me again. More than that, I will show you the shortcut leading outside from this dark cave you are trapped in so you may help your new allies and friends or else escape the city, should you wish so. You will find your armor there in the temple of Solos, I have no more need of it. I have found a superior vessel that will allow me to reclaim my essence and then run and hide. I will also direct your brothers that Galmathorians have brought into the city in advance with the help of the one known as Kaoku the raccoon to attack those who dared to bind me before, they will be powerful allies and should any of them survive tonight, they will follow after me.}

“My- my brothers?” The warrior asked with disgust.

{Yes.} The mistress nodded. {The one known as Kaoku was approached by one of Dia’s allies. Fueled by grief and thirst of revenge over the death of her husband, she had agreed to poison her benefactors. Her ships, that are supposed to deliver exotic produce from her homeland, carry my flesh in them, under the guise of a simple delicacy mushroom. It was intended to be used to drive the inhabitants who would taste it mad and dull their senses and thoughts, while my children ravage the city together with the dark priestess's and her mate’s undead army. With me now free, I hold no interest in helping them any longer and should you wish so, I will turn them against my former captors in exchange for letting me go free.}

>What do you do?

So now that the white goo arm is gone where is our robot arm…? And what about the eye? I think right now we are armor arm and eye-less and thoroughly fucked up. Not ideal for going into combat. We also have the integrity core with us which could be a huge liability in this situation. We should savely tuck that away inside the fairy cake and put it in Bernsens beard or stomach:

Though the most pressing matter right now is what the fuck do we do with the mistress. She sounds pretty reasonable and her offer makes sense but then again the first time we talked to her she also didn't seem that bad until we denied her.

If we decide to attack her we could just try to spirit overdrive her and hope that it' very effective and isn't stopped by the maximus armor. Maybe cannibalize Forsythes body to regain strength. We can forget about spirit healing with the sun going down. Then rush back to the embassy and hope that either her main body can't escape from the bag herself or that Sir Mathew will prevent her from walking out the front door. Killing the brain should also stop all the homunculi.

Or we do trust her probably loose the armor (unless we provide her with a living body) but potentially deal a heavy blow to the coup by either having the homunculi actively fight them or run amok. Depending on whether or not she keeps her word.

Either way heading for the embassy seems like a reasonable idea since most of our allies seem to be gathered there. Unless you guys think we have a chance of reaching the king before the dude does.

>>345638

While we can't trust her….we and our allies aren't in position to fight back, so for now let's leave as fast as we can and tell her we don't want her to fuck the people from black forest ever again and as long as she don't try any of the shit she tried before and don't disturb anyone ever again we won't track her down and destroy her once and for all, when we leave send our group to help our friend ask to Kenzie and Sahra to warn our allies, they can fly so they will deliver the news faster, Bersen should look for Emilya and Maxie after that we should regroup and bring forth Kaoku little scheme to light and discuss with our allies and friends if we should escape the city or fight back.

>>345644

>Bersen should look for Emilya and Maxie

Maxie is right there inside the body of the fungus in front of us right? And as I said as long as we don't provide her with an actually body or she doesn't take one herself it sounds like she intends to use the armor as her new host body. If we want to keep our Maxie we should figure that shit out. Either go to the embassy and kill her once and for all or pick up some half dead girl that got injured during the fighting that we can trade for the armor.

We could just provide her with the body of one of the Chantrymen we are inevitably going to kill if we decide to stay but I'm not sure if we should give the super fungus a body that's corrupted by Phallias blessing. That might not be the greatest idea.

>>345585

Warning Anderson might be a good idea.

>>345644

Getting Emilya and Maxie back would be a good idea.

>>345664

>Maxie is right there inside the body of the fungus in front of us right?

No. The fungus used Maxie to travel upstairs to find a human woman. >>345583

>body of one of the Chantrymen

The Blessing of Solos prevents this.

>>345585

Well shit has finally hit the fan.

>Good thinking on going to the catacombs everyone.

We kinda got lucky. If it didn't come up in the embassy, we would have waited to go to that theater with the ambush, and that might not have been in time.

Anyway, good thing we got infodumped, it makes thing so much easier and not meta.

>I do not lie my son.

Oh_wait_you're_serious_let_me_laugh_harder.mpeg9

>one of the campaign's possible final bosses

>one of

Will there be a final boss if we can prevent the ritual? If we stop everyone interested in using the ritual for their own ends before they get to the temple of Solos, we have no problem.

I see three more possibilities as to the final boss.

First is the royal guard leader, second is his arriving sister if he dies, and third is fungal bitch. I'm not buying that she has no interest, she specifically looked for a vessel in the temple of Solos rather than somewhere else, and that amount of power would make her job far easier.

Side note, either the gremlin lied to us, or Dia is a member of the Braun family other than Diana.

If we fail to stop the ritual, we'll need the weapon that the royal guard leader has, so targeting him first would be a good move, especially while he's in the palace and isolated from most of his troops. Might save the king, too.

The Galmathorian army would be easy if those anti-magic things weren't up. One lightning bitch ball would end that threat before they even land.

One thing that wasn't quite clear was if the fungus army she was talking about is already in the city, or if it's still on the ships, waiting to strike. If they're still on the ships, burning them would be a good idea.

Right now, though, we need to get out of the catacombs, and fungal bitch is willing to show us the way out if she thinks we're not a threat. She's not the only one that can lie.

List of threats:

King's guard

Galmathorian army

Fungal bitch's army (temporary allies?)

Possible allies to contact/rally:

Union trolls at the leyway station. They might be able to contact the wizards, too.

Bellatrix and crew.

Emiliya, though we've got to be careful freeing her. The last thing we want is to free fungal bitch, especially since the ability to kill her at any time would be very valuable.

DSS? I doubt Anderson has anything to do with this, and they may be able to stop or at least slow down Braun's assasination attempt. Get the Deleorian military in gear, too.

Order heroes? I think we have one or two contacts, and they can tell their friends.

>Atlantis has vast quantities of Orichalcum

Seems like it could be relevant in the future. Unless it's the source of Galmathoria's extreme resource surplus, in which case it's relevant now.

Oh, and grab Blitz's gun. Might come in handy.

>>345671

Oh nevermind then I somehow misread that part and if I read that part correctly (now) she left our augmentations inside the armor too. With the magic dampeners in place they wouldn't do us much good right now anyway but good to know we haven't lost anything permanently.

>>345679

>grab Blitz's gun

>Possible allies to contact/rally

Communion matrix won't work with those magic inhibitors in place. The gun should if it's a Galmathorian design. Might be the only working magitek rifle in the city right now until those submarines arrive. We should probably sent Sahra and Kenzie to the embassy asap like one anon suggested. There you have order heroes chat noir maybe an DSS agent or two plus Baha and Beatrix. The last two are already familiar with hunting down those fucking machines. Which we should probably do. Re-establishing communication could proof vital for saving the city.

>>345585

I don't trust that bitch any farther than I can throw her, but we can't kill 100 soldiers of the kingsguard and take on galmathoria's army even with an extended party (I can't believe it's not Ahab and the turtle dragon cunt)

First order of business, get badger waifu and the armor, which is actually inside the castle seeing how it et that woman.

Then I propose paying the Wall a visit and having a nice but quick chat. Best case scenario we can recruit him and the galmathorian army to crush all our enemies, fungal or cultists, and repair relations at the same time, and worst case scenario we have collateral.

p.s. any chance of the grand wizard and selene turning up?

>>345701

>That spoiler

>laughingwhores.jpg

Not until part three.

>>345701

No, they're busy getting slapped around by a guy who loves rocks.

>>345730

Let slavman finish his story and we'll eee what happens going forward.

>>345683

>Communion matrix won't work with those magic inhibitors in place.

Oh right. Dang. Well, we would have had to talk with some of them in person anyway.

Ok, so the initial plan is roughly something like Bern, Zapp, and Skorne go to the palace to stop the assasination, rally DSS, and get The Wall if possible to divide and subvert the Galmathorian forces being used by Al-Sabbath. Sahra and Kenzie go to the embassy to rally a bunch of people and get that bag of holding with Emiliya and fungal bitch.

Three additions.

Maybe have Sahra and Kenzie pay a visit to the leyway station if it's not out of the way.

If Richter (The Wall) hasn't escaped, he either hasn't made an attempt to use his summon spirit, or DSS found a way to suppress it. If they've found a way to suppress the spirit, that trick will be very handy. Not completely sure, but if that green glow on the royal guards was from summon spirits, we'll need something of the sort if we're forced to fight them. 300 top of the line troops with holy magic is bad enough. 300 top of the line troops with holy magic and summon spirits? It would be easier to kill everyone trying to get into the temple, even with the mazelike sewers and catacombs.

There is one other way to stop the ritual. Capture enough of the objects that the Galmathorians are bringing for it. Killing their leader wouldn't be quite as good, but it'd still be excellent, as that would defeat their purpose for coming and throw their army into disarray.

Thoughts? Additions?

>>345755

Sure thing chief

I have a bad feeling about this. Mushroom bitch has a history of psychopathic behavior including lying, appeasing at all costs, sweet talking and blatant manipulation. We really, really need her dead as soon as possible. She also has a host body now because she ate a woman. Please don't fuck up this late in the campaign as it won't just lead to a TPK, it'll lead to genocide and warfare and the nation collapsing

>>345906

There is a few things you are failing to grasp. Starting with the fact of we are fucked up, Bersen lost both Maxie and any other augmentations he had, Sahra is out of Juice and Zapp is almost out of juice as well, the only ones who are a bit alright are the Skorne and Kenzie and even if do decide to fight her, the "real" her already got a new body so killing the her here will just put us at odds with her and possible get over 100 hundred crazy hummunculus out for our blood, not a single person here trust any of what she said but you need to understand we are in a huge disadvantage, we are lost in the depths of the catacombs and we don't know shit of which is the best way to get out, we got a another core and we can't let neither her know we got one or let her get her dirty moldy hands on it, we got fucked on those battles and unless we leave as fast as possible we risk not only our allies but we might get fucked silly from all sides by our enemies. We don't have to trust her but we must not pick up another fight when a even big one is about to happen right now, if you are so uncertain about her intentions then put her on trial, use spirit sense on her to know her intentions and if she is willing to keep her part of the deal.>>345906

Not a big fan of schedule slips, but things are getting a little out of hand in scale, so bear with it.

>>346856

Take your time m8

Slav boi is dead. We are going to need another necromancer. Anybody know one?

Bumping from last page because it'd be a damn shame if it dies like this. Fuck you man, post again. I'm not saving the thread after this. Don't make me highjack the damn thread, I'll do it just for closure i swear to god

>>371661

<see the thread bumped after half a year

<think it's an update

>nope

>it's just anon being a faggot again

I hope you get shot on the side of the street like the nigger you are.

>>371661

neck yourself

>>371755

>>371680

It would have fucking died if i hadn't bumped it you tards. Like 5 more new threads and hey presto, the story is gone. Bunch of prissy faggots getting their panties in a twist.

>>371785

Then that would've been Slavsan problem.

>>371785

im sure someones saved it

though tbh i think we've fucked it beyond redemption, but we'll see what happens

>>372556

My god… Im almost done with the first pass edit of WQ1 and now this!

*He lives*

The prophecies are true.

>>372556

Oh lord…

Just read the story and last post was about half a year past. Should I call it dead?

>>388405

Why did you ask the question, when you didn't sage to begin with?!

>>388405

It may be time to call it dead but it sure is time to call you a faggot for not saging and getting our hopes up

>>388405

You need be lynched.

>>388405

thread is rip