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

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Mr Zoat, Jan 27, 2019.

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  1. Sojiko

    Sojiko Getting sticky.

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    So, was that a reality TV show that she won? Sounds very much like the sort of wackiness of Fallout games.
    I think that should be "then"
     
  2. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    A giant robot showing up with a bunch of kidnapped people to play "Who wants to marry Krona?" was shown in previous side adventures.
     
  3. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    See here.
    Thank you, corrected.
     
  4. AR760

    AR760 Experienced.

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    Have they fought Anti-Life before though? Remember, this is Young Justice, and even in the setting Darkseid has yet to have ever really found or used the full Anti-Life equation.

    Fighting Apocalypse fundamentally is not the same thing as fighting Anti-Life, and the number of beings on Earth, especially mortal ones who have any experience with Anti-Life, let alone knows about it can probably be counted on one's hands, with fingers left over.

    Also, someone knowing about the Anti-Life equation, if it doesn't make them a memetic hazard, which I'm still not sure about still puts them in danger from attracting the wrong kind of attention, and moreover runs the risk of them finding out more.

    Anti-Life in DC is the kind of existential, cosmological threat the League and company rarely ever fight, let alone in its entirety.

    Why would Atlantis even be a decent study partner in this? I mean, seriously, the risks of them diving in and getting contaminated, especially since they are not Lords of Order tier beings with the kind of power and experience and skills that Quinn and the likes of those being having is immense.

    Having Atlantis study this seems to be the very definition of a bad idea. Moreover, Balewa hid away from civilization for decades, and Fate has no reason to trust him from what we've seen.

    Fate's been around a long time, and it doesn't seem from what we've read in passing that they've had a lot of interaction. So jumping into telling Balewa about Anti-Life if they are only just getting acquainted seems like a bit of a jump to me.
     
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  5. Bud-E

    Bud-E Stand up so I can push you down!

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    In this story, they fought Anti-Life before when they rescued Amon and Quinn himself isn't a Lord of Order he just gets a boost in power using Fate's old helmet so if he's qualified to study it Atlantis the premier magic researchers on Earth should be able too as well. And Dr. Mist and Quinn have worked together on several occasions along with the rest of the League's magic users. Also Quinn is not Nabu he has nowhere near the life experience nor the magical knowledge he had and if we're going with the Quinn is a golem made by Constantine theory he's only a few years old at most him interacting with Anti-Life with so little life experience could seriously mess him up.
     
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  6. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    Yes, they have.

    The Leagye fought it when they rescued Amon and Alan and Paul fought a cult that used it.

    True, but he has still found and used pieces of it.

    Not in this story.

    Because they have thousands of years worth of magical knowledge, the most advanced magic tools on the planet, highly trained magic users etc.

    Quinn just uses an Order artifact, but is not himself a Lord.

    He's also like a year old, so his experience is probably not that great.

    And he's still a massively powerful, skilled and knowledgeable magician.

    Except for the fact that Balewa seems to be dedicated to protecting people from magic threats.

    No, Nabu's been around for a long time.

    Quinn is around a year old.

    Thank you.
     
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  7. Threadmarks: Fall Over (part 4)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    September 6th, the Year of Our Lord 2282
    Early Evening


    Father looks pensive as their convoy files into the building which the Sky Walkers have set aside for their use. Father has been looking pensive a great deal, of late.

    "Daughter, I do not mean to call you a liar, but every member of the Sky Walkers tribe we have spoken to has named you their chief's wife. Is there something that you have not told me?"

    Tears is a little annoyed to find herself blushing again.

    The journey through the old White Legs territory was a stark reminder of how far their tribe had come. From roving hunters to farmers. From living in tents of hide to living in buildings of brick and stone. In truth, Tears had not recognised the site of their former main camp until her father pointed it out, so little was there to mark it as a place of significance. Some people still lived in the ruins of the town of Lincoln, operating its foundries and hunting the lands around for meat, but it was a tiny fraction of the numbers who once dwelt there.

    And in the lands they had conquered between Lincoln and New Canaan it was almost as if it had not happened. The strange people of the Timekeepers tribe from Vault 24 were still building their clocks, the only change to their lives being that they now sold their excess to the Canaanite trade caravans rather than chasing them away. The Tar Walkers had paid them tribute, but now that had been cancelled to try and persuade them to listen more to the missionaries. The only change that Tears found in their lands was her father's youngest wife -only a few years her senior, which explains how he keeps his strength up when not on campaign- introducing them to her family.

    But there were Ammonites who walked these lands. Though they had not precisely been White Legs territory, since there was only barren wasteland between Lincoln and the settlements of the Sky Reavers, neither side saw the need to an exact border. The people of Lincoln told them that was no longer the case when their caravan passed through, but to see so much land turned to not just farms but actual forests with such strange birds and animals in them… It was a strange sight.

    And the great town of Groom Lake itself! Tears had seen robots and motor-driven carts called 'cars' and 'trucks' in Colorado. Utah had simple vehicles, usually little more than engines strapped to welded-together frames. In Groom Lake, the vehicles were like the vehicles from before the war left stranded on or next to the old roads. Only they were new and they still worked!

    And the people dressed as Krono's warriors in Colorado dressed hailed her as the wife of their chief, and offered them hospitality and bade them enter. Did Krono think they were married? Did his tribe have a custom where they were betrothed until the moment when he met her mother and father and then they were immediately married? She had thought that they would have a Mormon ceremony, but he did not say anything about how his tribe does marriages.

    "I do not think so, father. I think that they saw the same broad cast that you did and have not spoken to their chief since then."

    "They believe that the machine-matchmaker is legitimate."

    "Honestly, it's more that we're glad-" A man dressed in the manner of the Sky Walkers walks towards them, two Ammonites walking just behind him as an escort. "-that he's interested in anyone. This is a new situation for us. With our last chief-. The Whisperers, our old ruling council, had a kind of group arrangement to preserve their power. We're all hoping that Krono has something a little more conventional, and you fit the bill."

    Her father frowns, causing the Sky Walker man to raise his hands.

    "Not that Tears-In-The-Rain isn't a great woman to have as a wife! The Chief's a lucky man! She proved that when she won the contest! It's just that he's been Chief for three years and still hasn't married."

    Her father is still frowning, but less aggressively.

    "Is his manhood sick? Can he not function as a man?"

    "Um."

    The man clearly doesn't like thinking of his chief in those terms. Tears knows a few brews which can help with some difficulties, but she knows of warriors whose loins were injured and were never able to function again. A warrior should not feel ashamed by an injury unless it was gained foolishly, but she does not envy them. She does not think that she would feel complete if she could not bear a child.

    "No, I don't think so. When we got the showers working, ah… I saw him, one time. It works."

    Tears is not quite so sheltered that she does not know that might still mean that he isn't interested in marrying a woman. Still, he is a chief. He has an obligation to sire an heir. Just… Not with her if that is the case. She wants more than one. And she's fairly sure that Mormonism frowns on brother-husbands.

    "Anyway. I'm Keanan Smith of the Sky Walkers, and I've been assigned to be your guide to Groom Lake. At least until Chief Krono gets back from Colorado."

    Her father nods. "I was told that the monster from Los had been destroyed."

    Keanan-Smith nods back. "Yeah, we all felt it. But there're a lot of important people over there right now, so the chief is using the opportunity to have everyone talk face to face. Sort out trade agreements and military pacts while everyone's in the same place."

    Tears only remembers one such meeting of equals, when her father sat down with Chief Thunderbird of the Eighties to trade for a part of their territory which he needed for the attack on New Canaan. Thunderbird agreed, since he wanted to capture lands to the west and had no interest in the east. Other than that, her father's meetings were with war chiefs and the elders of defeated tribes. He was clearly in charge.

    "What agreements does he seek?"

    "Well, who gets the territory that the Super Mutants overran. Texas claims the part near Los, but there's a whole lot that used to belong to the Legion that needs someone looking after it and they don't think they could hold that much. The NCR had a research team up there and they wanted help backing them up. Except that's WARDEN's territory, so they had to sort out a treaty that would let them work there but acknowledged that they were WARDEN's guests and don't run the place. Rio Grande wanted the NCR navy's help with the Cartels, and they needed to agree a timetable for fighting Caesar's Legion. And the Chief wanted to make sure that the different Brotherhood of Steel chapters around there were cooperating with everyone. And he's probably going to talk about our accession to the NCR."

    Her father looks around, frowning once more. "Has the NCR conquered your tribe?"

    "No, but-. The NCR is a federation of tribes, with a great council that decides matters which affect them all. Given that we're friends and that almost all of our trade happens with the NCR, it makes sense for us to join as a new state."

    "Would Krono still be your chief?"

    "In the NCR, the chief of a tribe is called a 'governor', the chief of the federation is called a 'president', and the people who represent the tribe in the great council are called 'senators'. He could pick either job, but he couldn't do both. Or he could do something else. He said that if the Sky Walkers joined the NCR then he'd rather be the chief shaman of the NCR than Governor of the Sky Walkers."

    Tears didn't know if the Ammonites would maintain the tradition of spirit walks. It wasn't something New Canaanites did but she didn't remember anything about it being explicitly forbidden. She did remember Krono's voice sounding in her head, but-.

    Did the television show that sort of voice?

    Her father looked confused. "Shaman? He talks with spirits?"

    "Oh, no. Sorry, I forgot that your people haven't had much to do with ours. Like this."

    Keanan-Smith turns away, than reaches his right hand out towards a crate on one of the wagons. It shakes for a moment, then rises into the air. It stays there for a moment, then floats over to a pile of similar crates and lands.

    "Krono wants everyone to have this sort of-."

    "Magic."

    Tears can hear the tension in her father's voice. Not fear, but caution at suddenly discovering that something you believed about the world was fundamentally wrong. A White Legs shaman might assist someone in discovering something about their own nature, or show surprising insight into a situation, but she could not remember any story about them lifting things with their minds.

    "Did you barter with demons for that power?"

    "No. No, God no. This is-. We used pre-War technology to alter our minds. Demons-." He shakes his head. "I was part of the warband we sent to Oregon to stop the Odious King. He had a demon in his head, and right before Krono and Andrew Shaw banished it we all got a look at its mind." He shakes his head again, more vigorously. "None of us are crazy enough to barter with something like that."

    "It is technology?"

    "Yes. I can-. If Tears-In-The-Rain and Krono marry, we'd be offering it to her as well."

    "I would like to see this 'technology'."

    He sounds sceptical, but he has seen a great deal in recent years that in his youth he did not think that he ever would.

    "No problem." Keanan-Smith nods happily. "Once you're settled in, I can show you around."
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2022
  8. Someguy Somewhere

    Someguy Somewhere The Critical Fumbler

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    Steel for Steal, unless the brotherhood is now better known for highway robbery.
     
  9. Vanbers

    Vanbers Well worn.

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    Well, I mean, from what I recall some *are* huge assholes like that, and steal all old-world tech anyone finds/invents.

    So it ain't in-accurate, is what I'm sayin'.
     
  10. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Looks like someone didn't get the memo. Sadly, I doubt there's much point trying to put the truth out there, since all those rumours have been through in their best running shoes. :p

    It's amazing how quickly things can change, sometimes. I mean, her father probably looks at her and still sees a little girl in pigtails...

    Well, if she can keep his spirits high, more power to them.

    Heh. More Garden of Eden Creation Kits, huh? Good to see Krono's people spreading the technology to clean up the Wastelands.

    ...Hopefully with nice, safe containment on their nuclear fuel sources...

    It's more likely that they're really hopeful about this working out... Krono's a nice guy, but he just won't sit still, will he? :p

    Eh, I doubt anyone could think that about Doki Doki. Bot's crazy, but in an entertaining way. You watch what she does and laugh, ideally from a safe distance from the splatter zone.

    Yeah, best not to talk about his daughter like that within earshot, or you might find a tomahawk sharing space with your sinuses.

    Hey, he's a busy man. Acts like it's his personal mission to fix... Pretty much everything.

    ...I mean, I doubt the Perfected Forced Evolution Virus would have the kind of drawbacks Super Mutants suffered from... (Aim at the crotch in-game, and... :sneaky: "Ha! We do not share that weakness!")

    Not that he was looking on purpose, though. :rolleyes: Sheesh, some guys.

    Heh, her own little brood of psychic kiddies, huh? Hopefully said powers don't start too early.

    Instead of having dash around like a headless chicken from town to camp to outpost? Very sensible.

    ...Do the Eighties' braves spray their faces with chrome paint and howl 'Witness me!' as they leap into combat? :p I detect more than a hint of Mad Max theming in that faction...

    So, what you're saying is, Krono's not gonna be slowing down anytime soon. :D Sheesh, talk about burning the candle at both ends. When does he sleep?

    Logical, though that means that new encounters might see you tarred with the NCR's reputation at first...

    Since he assumes they'll need someone with more than three brain cells and a healthy amount of Common Sense to head off any missteps?

    ...I'm gonna go with 'no'. Which would have made for some amusing moments when a girl yelled at Krono about something only she heard...

    Though to be fair, in this context, Shaman works. He is basically going to be their Wise Man...

    Ah... :oops: Whoops? I'm guessing the Canaanites have a thing about paranormal stuff.

    Only the demon called Science. And it's fairly easy-going about sharing its stuff. :p

    I'm sure the good Book is a lot more forgiving on the subject of technology, rather than 'sorcery most foul', huh?

    ...I mean, I doubt it would look all that exciting. But if it's something his little girl might be harmed by....

    I get the feeling there's going to be some very heated discussion amongst his superiors, then...

    And the side-trip continues. I'm sure the Chief was expecting some things to be done differently out amongst the Wasteland, but not like that. Still, if they can put a good face on it, perhaps the Canaanites will have to update their book with rules about mentalism and its righteous uses...
    At any rate, I'm guessing Alan's about done drilling, since we're heading back to the A-plot tomorrow. Time to see how fucked up Blackbriar Thorn is by Anti-Life, and how hard they have to kick his bark.
     
  11. NightmareWarden

    NightmareWarden Versed in the lewd.

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    My goodness, this guy must have expertise in Diplomacy. He is passing skill check after skill check. Paul, you have an eye for talent. I guess the ability to read minds helps with that.

    I doubt Paul’s prep work for him included discussion of Paul’s meat and two veg though. Nice improv work.
     
  12. Assblaster5000

    Assblaster5000 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Assuming the cars are working off of nuclear fusion like their Pre-War counterparts were supposed to be then containment it's not that big an issue. Don't stand right next to one if it's ruptured while active obviously, but you don't need a very high-heat reactor to run an electric engine so at most a centimeter of tungsten as an absolute last resort failsafe would... maybe not save your skin, but you'd probably be alive, and with Fallout medical tech plus biomancy you'll be right as rain in a few weeks tops.
     
  13. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    No, they come from before that film.
     
  14. Windona

    Windona Beetle Queen of Crackshipping

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    Gotta give the dating sim robot credit, she really knew how to pick the bachelorettes. Especially since it looks like Tears isn't just a good personality match but will help bring another tribe into the alliance.

    And excellent delegation to show the visitors around. Interesting.
     
  15. Tyrantviewer

    Tyrantviewer lord of all I survey

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    Oh God- if this marriage works out and people KNOW that it worked out- the dating sim robot might not only pull a sequel, but people might deliberately go to her for matchmaking. That is pure fallout marriages arranged by a dating sim gone sentient, that ACTUALLY works out.
     
  16. Threadmarks: Tower Offence (part 14)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    8th November 2012
    11:57 GMT -5


    Alan nods, pulling back his right arm and dismissing his construct.

    "I'm through."

    I nod. "You can take a nap. It's been a long day, and you're pretty-"

    He exhales sharply in amusement.

    "-old."

    "Through the soil, jackass. You got the vines down that far yet?"

    "Yes, it-."

    I hear a faint crackling noise, and my connection to the vines wavers.

    "Someone is trying to block me. I-."

    Dr. Balewa winces. "Anti-Life. I can hold it off, but little more."

    I glance at Alan. "I'll shoot the crystals if you keep Thorn's attention."

    He nods. "On three. One." I stop touching the vines through the Green, since they've got as far as they're going and I need to focus. "Two. Three!"

    We both fly over the hole and then down. I'm not too worried about construct armour. Anti-Life infused vines will probably punch right through it. What I am worried about is getting so much Anti-Life exposure that it still manages to affect me. So rather than physical armour-.

    Something lands on my left leg, and I immediately react with a construct-spike. The brownie with its left claw embedded in my armour uses its right to slash apart the spike. Its claws aren't long enough to get through my armour, but it's still-

    "Brownies!"

    -capable of disrupting my constructs from there.

    Alan hedgehogs, thin spines surrounding him in order to make a direct teleport strike impossible. Just in time, as three brownies appear around him. Two go to work attacking the structure, but the ablative spine lattice forces them to destroy each smaller construct one at a time. The third gets stuck in the gaps, and Alan restrains it so that it can't brings its claws to bear.

    Decent idea-.

    Another brownie appears, this one on my helmet. This time I don't use a spike. I use an x-ionised knife. I think it has time to see the glow and it definitely tries to interpose its claws as the blade leaves subspace, but all that means is that it loses its hand just before its neck. It falls in bits towards the tunnel end below us, and I adopt the defensive measure of having my remaining x-ionised knives orbit around me at speed. The brownie already on my leg gets special treatment; since it's not all that fast I have the time to aim at its forearms, slicing through them and denying it access to its claws. It teleports-

    More brownies shimmer in and then leave immediately to avoid being slices up by my knives.

    -away, and I knit my armour back into one piece.

    "Need help?"

    Spines shift and pin the other two brownies before-.

    All three teleport away.

    That's going to be annoying.

    Coming up fast I can see the furthest extent that the vines I sent down reached, white flowers seeming to shimmer until about a meter into the interior of the underground chamber and then-.

    Black crystals, writhing vines a dreadful sense that I'm in the wrong for being here.

    Railgun, track a crystal with a mage slayer round and fire.

    A vine darts out, taking the hit and being broken in two but succeeding in shielding the crystal but knowing that the feeling is artificial doesn't make it go away. Second railgun, track crystals at random and fire when charged.

    Compliance.

    It used to worry me when my irises turned into the orange sigil. Now I know that my head is glowing orange as I effectively offload the stress of accelerating my thoughts to a speed that actually lets me handle situations like this onto constructs. As Nabu's mind ran on structures of Order magic, so mine is running on the orange light.

    That would have worried me.

    But as Alan drifts past at a relative crawl… No. I need this.

    Guns track and fire, vines shift and churn, the mass trying to prevent me getting a clean shot but I'm dealing with omniscience, effectively. It-.

    I halt my forward motion at the entrance to the cavern, the few vines that lunge for me being sliced from the parent plant by my knives. We're come out in the upper surface of an ovoid cavern, vines and their black crystals covering the floor and ceiling both. I know that the vines also reach through the soil and out into the fields above us, but I can't see either those connections or the roots. These have to be at least in some senses normal plants; magic only gets you so far.

    Alan flies ahead, spinning rotary saws cutting through the vines that drop down at him from above. His environmental shield is glowing brilliantly, hope being a better natural counter to Anti-Life than avarice. My railguns aren't getting anywhere, so maybe-.

    Alan forms a grenade launcher and fires actual.. phosphorus grenades around the chamber. They burn brilliantly where they land, but the light is swallowed by the unnatural darkness of this room. I think I dimly see where Blackbriar Thorn might be, a mound of vines in the approximate centre of the floor. Or it could just be the locus of the vines. I take a shot that I don't expect to get anywhere and sure enough it hits… Can't see clearly, some sort of solid surface that just absorbs the hit.

    I should have thought this out better-.

    Ah HAH! Did you think we wouldn't notice?

    I leave my railguns to it, while I transmute the air around me into illegally strong defoliant.

    Did you think that we don't know the sound of our own thoughts?

    My thoughts are usually disordered, jumping from one-.

    Oh, STOP.

    No. I'll make you stop.

    The vines coming at Alan are replenishing themselves so fast that he can't afford to fly forward quickly any longer, rather he's forced to do what he was on the surface but with less room to manoeuvre. More importantly, his environmental shield has shrunk.

    There's a basic rule of magic that the Anti-Life appears to have never learned. If something is touching you, you're touching it.

    We open the Honden in the Black that is touching us.

    "Purposelessness → Desire → Purpose."

    I feel a sudden uplift as the oppressive blackness recoils, but it's too late. The vines spasm but they're not being replenished, my railgun rounds finally start hitting their targets and the crystals start shimmering with beautiful orange light. With the spell lifted I see Blackbriar Thorn embedded and impaled by vines, only his upper torso mostly visible in the mass at the centre of the room.

    He snaps out of his stupor as the crystals start to shatter on their own, unable to contain the conflicting energies. For a moment we make eye contact, and he recognises me.

    Then lightning flies from his hands and smashes me into the wall!
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2022
  17. Darko

    Darko Connoisseur.

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    "turned"
     
  18. BlueMangoAdea

    BlueMangoAdea Alive. For now.

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    "light"
     
  19. Laundromat2.0

    Laundromat2.0 Getting sticky.

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    Did he just mindfuck the anti-life right back? I LOVE THAT - can you imagine, these anti-lifers having to second guess THEIR thoughts and feelings... the best way to fight a virus is another virus

    ALSO, does this mean that when he does thought acceleration, he effectively has a halo of avarice?
     
  20. Bramble Thorn

    Bramble Thorn Verified Silhouette

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    Why would they have to confict?

    It seems they'd go together like peanut butter an jelly.

    The Black deformats someone's desires to bleak emptiness.
    The Orange fills the hollowed out space the the desire to enact the will of the one wielding the Orange light.

    I mean, what does Darkseid do to use Anti-Life as a method on control? He takes the base equation and bolts obedience to his will onto the end after the normal effect softens them up.

    And what does Branding do? It stamps an superseding desire set on someone, only it's harder because their base desires haven't been compromised by anti-life first.
     
  21. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

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    So Paul can now at least partially counter the Anti-Life. Awesome.

    Now get Alan and one of the Greens to do the same thing and then incite a rebellion or two on Apokolips.
     
  22. Bud-E

    Bud-E Stand up so I can push you down!

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    I think the crystals are filled with Order magic. So it would be Order crystals being filled with Orange light.
     
  23. dw7thdoctor

    dw7thdoctor Getting sticky.

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    is the orange text supposed to be OL's thought or ophidian's I got a little confused cause he seemed to be talking to him?
     
  24. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Hey, nothing to be ashamed of, Alan, some guys just can't keep the pace up at your age. Though I don't think the little blue pill will help in this situation. Or did you mean something else, old fellow? :V Phrasing is important!

    I see OL's mind went to the same place. Cocky young pup.

    See, got to be careful how you phrase things. Some folks can turn anything into a dirty joke. :p

    Ah, there's Blackbriar Thorn. No doubt very aware of the threat the modified vines would pose to him.

    Time for the railgun equivalent of a Death Blossom Attack?

    Because even the bottomless light of Enlightenment can be smothered by enough darkness.

    Oh, these guys. Of course Thorn has plenty of them playing guard.

    Boy, Alan is being damn sneaky here, with multi-layered constructs and smart restraints. Good to see he hasn't been resting on his laurels.

    Not so easy to disrupt monomolecular blades, huh? Kind of messy, but these guys are pretty much gone anyway...

    At least they're not that suicidal to throw themselves on his blades pointlessly.

    Merciful, but that's Alan for you. Hope doesn't lend itself to cold pragmatism as Avarice does...

    At least the ones you disarm won't be back...

    Oh, that's not good. Full-on area-effect Anti-Life.

    Fill the air with enchanted iron, see how many he can block at once. No way can it be enough... See if you can imitate a Touhou boss barrage.

    Heh. Acceleration level 2: no need to burn out your own brain meats!

    It's probably a good thing you aren't using your meat-brain for this, it'd likely have cooked by now.

    On the upside, if they can kill the core, the vines might well die from the center out.

    Aw, he's covering the weak point with shields. Guess you gotta beat on the edges long enough to make him open up.

    And there's that backup thinking bit coming into play. Self-correcting error-checking for the win.

    Taking 'Slash and Burn' to the next level, eh? Entirely necessary, though.

    Now, imagine if he did this back during the New Cronus situation. Would have settled things much quicker.

    No time to play nice, Alan. Crack out the big guns and drop those smart bombs.

    Well, hello there. Let's see how you handle a direct injection of WANT.

    Nice, disrupted all the defences.

    Oh, right, Druid. Not just good with plants.

    The joy of boss fights in confined spaces. Gotta keep the additional mooks under control while you pound on the boss. While keeping your head on a swivel for their attacks. This is why I never tried to do endgame content in MMO's: too much to concentrate on. Fortunately, OL has a lot more brain to think with, especially now he's learned to offload some of it outside his own skull. :p With any luck, this should be over soon.
     
  25. Assblaster5000

    Assblaster5000 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Both. The pronoun "we" is used whenever Paul and The Ophidian are fused, fully or not.

    "magic only gets you so far" unless this is meant to be some funky statement about magic plants.
     
  26. Ciber

    Ciber Know what you're doing yet?

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    Did OL just figure out a tiny fragment of the Life Equation?

    Also it just occured to me that many myths consider the sky as a solid surface, dome, or shell around the Earth. Often held up or otherwise maintained by the gods.
    This could be an explanation for why Magic was more prevalent in certain time periods or places. What if they weren't holding up the sky, but holding in the thaumosphere.
    We know that magic radiates out from earth. When if at various points the different thaumovoric gods and pantheons have constructed magical superstructures to act as an inverted shield, holding the magic closer to the earths surface to concentrate it.

    So say Atlas was not holding up the sky in it's entierty, but was instead holding in the magic around the greek peninsula. And his being freed removed the advantageously high thaumic concentration which helped the greek pantheon stay in power.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2022
  27. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    It's not Anti-Life in general that conflicts, but rather that this fragment can't be reconciled with it.
     
  28. NightmareWarden

    NightmareWarden Versed in the lewd.

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    Desire? DESIRE?

    You used one of the endless in a spell, eh? An endless who is likely in constant contact with your Light. Does everyone remember how Zeus’ stupid mission for Wonder Woman distracted Paul from Constantine? And then Gaia sent him to South America, Persephone sent him to the Underworld, etc etc?
    It sounds like one of the Endless will choose to pop in soon enough! That sounds appropriately chaotic for Eris’s worshipper. The only question is will she appear during or after this mission? I certainly doubt the barriers in the Tower of Fate will bar her passage if she Wants to see Paul again.

    Alternatively Paul meant the word Desire, as a concept, rather than the entity. But where is the fun in that?

    On an unrelated note- I wonder if Onomatopoeia is in this part of the Tower too.
     
  29. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Without Dues Ex Machine protection this would result in the Anti Life poisoning both the Orange Light and Ophidian.

    Because Anti Life is just that much higher on the metaphysical scale.
     
    Otto von Saurion likes this.
  30. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    That might be possible if it were the entire Anti-Life Equation. But as this is just a fragment, it is believable that it can be overcome.
     
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