@Vec Huh, that is neato. I was joking with the Japanese use which basically means Triple Death.
My story goes deeper with the number 7 (My oldest web account that I can still access is from 7/7/2007 for example. Favorite musician, who I took 2/3 of the names of my characters in Divinus from was born on a day 7 and one time I imported her disks and got the chance to send a mail to her, she actually freaking answered and it arrived on July 7, etc...)
But many times I find myself looking at the clock right as it is hitting 4:44
...
And I don't even believe in the stuff, I'm an atheist, one that happens to read a lot about Kabbalah and Shamanism and all sorts of stuff, like, 20gb worth of e-books on these topics.
Thanks god I'm finally out of this First Parade post. Idk why, but it just didn't work out this time. I promise quality will increase in the next few ones, once they get to the Human bits of Mesathalassa and all sorts of cool folk start to show up.
The group goes trough a Jungle. Salssar sees Chroma fighting and gets spooked. They arrive at the village of Susa. (Not Susa's homeland. The village which housed her when she had broken her leg.) Leather making is such a good business that they just chill out and hunt for fun Susa gets annoyed at that and creates a system that incentivizes exploration and all that This actually helps Salassar and the Parade, as they wanted the village to be more proactive
Chroma: 30 khookies -28 to level up to level 6 +5 from the this post 7 khookies
Susa: 35 khookies -11 to level up to level 4 -10 to estabilish the Wanderers in the village of Susa +5 from the this post 19 khookies
From Barbahar onward the previously tame journey became a full-time adventure across muddy jungles and dark caves. They could return to the coast and fare trough tamer roads, but the idea of a quicker journey trough the center of Mesathalassa felt more interesting.
They thought that a simple geological barrier wouldn't be able to hold a group of god chosen people, they were quite wrong, as they often found themselves lost in the brume covered forests or fighting against elementals, predators, and wild human-hating hain.
This, of course, provided the group with plenty of training and strengthened their bond. Or so it would have been, had it not been for the last battle they got trough.
Salassar had been sending dreams forward to warn other villagers that they were arriving, even after the Hain attacks he did not stop. One of the warned chieftains, however, was quite familiar with the huntress Susa. He was a powerful Shaman who once had got into a fight with her, and he never forgot the humiliation of that day.
In his elder age, he already knew how to communicate with the lesser elementals quite well. No mortal could hope to deal with the higher ones, but the smaller ones could be convinced into deals, sometimes the mere promise of a good fight with a mortal warrior was enough.
The wind elemental made the jungle brume thicker, to the point visibility became a serious issue. This separated the group between Salassar with Chroma and Lakshmi with Susa.
The Quara got to see the how Chroma fought, and even for him, who had stared at the maddening depths of the Raka, it was something else. Her body was in a constant process of transmogrification to adapt to battle. When she needed speed her flesh was fibrous, but in times of defense, a quick ossification would take place.
It was all very bizarre, truly Jvanic in nature, but the girl didn't seem aware, she yelled "shield" and a plate of leather and bone formed around her elbow and it was clear she couldn't tell a normal shield from that fleshy construct apart.
Worse was her lack of mercy in battle, the Hain were fighting Susa and Lakshmi. Salassar thanked the gods for that, he couldn't even imagine how more gruesome the fight would have been had Chroma not been destroying simple wind elementals.
Once it was all over, he truly wanted to express his worry about the situation, perhaps even to Chroma itself. But for once, words failed him, surely this was all within lady Ilunabar's plan, but why had it to be like that...
The next destination was a surprise to Susa, it was... Susa.
The little village she was forced to stay at after the incident of the Phantasmagoric Night had little history outside of being "that village where that huntress once lived", therefore, it was natural that they would take her namesake.
At first, the huntress found the name choice odd, but once in there, what truly struck her as odd was how much older everyone was. She didn't feel aged at all, but time had surely flowed by, perhaps Lifprasil's touch had stopped it.
However, even that oddness was soon washed away by the next batch of bizarre. The village rejoiced once they saw The Huntress returning, they were always nice to her, and surely she was a protector but never had she imagined that they would idolize her, especially after she left.
"See, finally some well-deserved respect" she boasted, it was not her typical way to deal with this and she wouldn't have cared if not for the endless moments of embarrassment she had to go trough until now.
"Whoa, you are like a celebrity to these people. That is so rad" Chroma and Susa had been on better terms since Barbahar. Salassar looked at the two giggling together and couldn't help but to feel a bit of discomfort, yet also curiosity, what had led Susa to open up after so much suspicion? Was that something he could learn too?
The people of the village had taken it far more seriously than mere admiration, though. A full organization of Hunters was formed, something close to what would one day be called a Guild.
Impressively enough, Susa didn't, particularly like the Group's ideas. Sharing the craft and systematically teaching the young were beneficial, but the group also had a collective mindset that was something oddly militarized.
It couldn't be just about killing wild animals and tanning their skin. That was not why Susa had started to wander in the first place, sure, the sight of rare or new game and slaying dangerous beasts could be satisfying, but it was above all for the journey itself.
However, no idea about how to deal with that came to her mind. It kept bothering her across the night and despite being back to her missed home she didn't feel any comfort now that she realized how much she had influenced the people.
However, she had learned a bit across this journey, she knew brooding over this wouldn't help, she had friends and she needed their help.
"Sally, do you have a moment?"
Salassar was her best bet at some insight into the situation, as a servant of the goddess of culture and also as someone who could perceive the many sides of an issue.
On the next morning, Susa proudly showed to Lakshmi and Chroma her new leather cloak.
"H-Happy to be u-using your ty-typical clothing-ing ag-again?"
"You have no idea. I was more than tired of using all those odd outfits."
"And look, it's full of drawings"
"Do you like it? Sally and I spent the night coming up with this. It actually records a bunch of feats I had as a Wanderer."
This was the first step of their plan to change the local culture. Valuing feats beyond the mere slaying of beasts would surely change some minds.
Salassar was actually impressed with how handy Susa's issue was, as always, he had gone into the village with a couple of god-given missions. While most of those meant merely carving rocks and trees, in this village, in particular, he was also meant to inspire the creation of Mapmaking.
Maps were a habit in Lifprasilia, some distant northern villages and of course, between the Grand Parade. In the Mesathalassa however, despite the constant journeys between villages, the habit of recording such paths was rare since there were always clear natural paths.
Of course eventually such practice would be born, but it would be in the already established power players like Fibeslay or the Vascogne and that would just increase their monopoly.
The Parade expected the village of Susa to take in Mapmaking easily and use it to further their trade opportunities and influence. However, when Salassar introduced the idea to the local hunters, all they could think about was to record the nearest places with good hunting potential. Their craft was so unique and useful that there was no need to travel around selling their goods, others would come to them.
But now Susa had taken direction action to change that. Salassar felt silly, he did not know if Susa agreed with the village's mindset or not, therefore he never asked her. He could have spared himself a sleepless night had the two got together to solve this sooner.
This brought back another issue to his mind, he approached the huntress, who was already packaging most of her belongings, as they would be back on the journey very soon.
"Susa, are you busy at the moment?"
"I promised Laky and Chroma that I would show them a very beautiful pond nearby before we leave this village. But once I'm back we can talk."
@Cyclone I think this Realta power issue is quite interesting, and it's something I've been thinking about since Dawnscroll's revelation about their strength. The way in which we approach it will have some big implications as to how we want the Might system to work. Here's the way I would approach it:
What exactly does giving something Might entail? If a human created with 1 Might (lets call him Jeff) goes up against a non-Might human, we can all agree that the 1 Might human would win. But what would happen if Jeff were to go up against, say, Gra the non-Might Treemind? Gra would, on his own, be able to wipe the floor with a human, but would Jeff be able to beat him regardless? What if Jeff was going up against a Grot-sized beast, created with no Might? The question here is of a creation's 'base power without Might' (if we ignore the 1 Might necessary to create any species of note as a 'transaction cost'). Realta, as a creation, have a very high base power - one that would probably put them above most other creations if we ignore Might. The question, then, becomes of whether Jeff's (base power + 1 Might) is greater than the base power of a Realta.
If we decide to go with a literal approach, then Vowzra's Victors, created with 4 Might, can probably go against the invading Realta and beat them quite soundly - but would that make sense? Is the (base power of Vowzra's Victors + 4 Might) enough for them to soundly defeat a force of Realtas? I think that is the issue at hand. It's up to you guys to work out how you want to approach it - should, for instance, the base power of a species be reflected in the original Might expended on creating them? i.e. a species created with 2 Might is immediately more powerful than one created with 1 Might? How would that work if, for instance, someone creates a race of sloths with 10 Might and another creates a race of dragons with 1 Might?
Or is this all just academic? xD
Feels a bit to gamey, it things were to take that path I would immediately regret having brought that point up.
To be honest I just found it a bit odd that a group of three heroes, one which will be level 7 or 8 by the time of the probable fight, couldn't beat a single Realta. That was just a single situation in which I found it a bit too OP, beyond that I see no problem.
@Dawnscroll Oh ok. It was the case of a Single Realta really. I just wanted some exciting battle for the last Paradepost to say "Hey, times of wandering around are over, get into robot, etc..."
If anything, this gives everyone opportunity to start investing Might in actual heroes. This is the age of Gods, where the stuff of legend is made! The heroes of old!
Well, a level 7 hero is equivalent to a 1 might level up hero. Thus why I thought at least Chroma with the aid of other leveled heroes could survive a battle against a single Realta.
@Dawnscroll Teknall would probably want a small chat with Logos after he begins wrecking stuff (mainly to ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing), although aside from that he has little power to intervene, at least immediately or on any substantial scale.
If your main target is Jvan, though, I suspect you might want to talk with Termite.
@Double Capybara since you have the Bard now, will the Bard say anything to the people trying to inspect the Cube?
An open question: who else intends to at least show up at the Memorial?
It's completely impossible for me to play the Bard right now. If you want, you could play as him for this one post.
Also, Ilunabar won't be visiting the memorial at all since she is a bit of a paranoid mood.
Scrawl Banditta
Lord Zee
