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>>2852545
The problem of defense is incredibly serious. With creatures the size of those wolves existing in the area the palisade is no longer sufficient. As the village is undermanned it can't effectively defend itself. The weapons you make won't matter if there are not enough people to man them. Thus the only available mid term solution is to build walls.

In particular you plan to build two walls. First wall would surround the entire area including the farm and fields. Its main purpose would be to deter wild animals from walking into the perimeter and unless needed it would be permanently closed. This will protect the whole village from minor threats. Unfortunately it is too big to use any advanced designs. You will basically copy the current wall design with a moat and reinforced palisade. To monitor the area you will also have to add several wooden watch towers but it won't add too much to the work load.

The inner wall would be much more substantial. Using medieval city wall construction principles you will erect the fortification to last for centuries! The wall would have double the radius of the village stretching almost to the farm building to provide ample growing space for the future expansions. It will be made mainly out of brick with central core made out of mainly mortar and filler rock. The wall itself would be ten meters tall and three meters wide with D shaped towers and brick parapets to cover the guards from the elements and possible aerial creatures. It would be large, glorious and time consuming.

With all the blueprints made and construction planned you need to decide how you want to approach the construction itself. The village is no longer separated from the rest of the country so there is always a chance of a sudden visit. In addition in less than a month a government official will arrive to collect the tax. With some minor help from you the required copper is ready for pickup but there is no way to tell when they will arrive. You reckon that construction of the outer wall would take you around 3 weeks and inner wall will take up to 5 weeks.

What to build first:
>Outer wall
>Inner wall

Additional measures
>Construct dud scaffolding, cranes and other construction equipment to lie about other people's involvement
>Start construction from the south so that the arriving people would hopefully not see incomplete areas
>Work overtime to assemble the wall faster
>Amass the materials and prepare foundations but delay construction until after village liaison visit
>Other?

>>2852568
>Inner wall

>Other? Emergency Escape Tunnel Network.

We can have a hidden tunnel that leads a mile away. Doesn't need to be big, or fancy, but if the outer wall is breached and the inner wall is failing, it gives the women and children the chance to grab some supplies and run away. Always have an escape route, after all.

>>2852568

>Outer wall

>Construct dud scaffolding, cranes and other construction equipment to lie about other people's involvement

This way we can involve or teach some of them and have time to relax during construction.

Is Haven suposed to come with the report? We got the damaged pod with us right?

>>2852600
We have that. Several actually. What's the point of a shelter if you can't escape it if things go south.

>>2852605
If it comes down to just us two, I'd be willing to switch to this with the caveat that we have the villagers spend some time actually building parts of the wall, with us using only minor corrections to ensure uniformity. This way, they have actual building experience with this type of construction.

>>2852620
Oh, then yeah let's do that.

>>2852605
Haven set off for the reward. She will be back eventually if something worth mentioning appears. We did get both our pod and the damaged pod and placed them in our facility below our house, yes.

>>2852605
>>2852622
Do I understand correctly, you want to teach villagers how to perform construction on that scale? Or do you want to actually make them build? Because they mainly consist of childred, women, elderly and four cripples who still need to tend the fields.

>Make them actively participate
>Use it only as demonstration

>>2852622
Also do I understand correctly that you want to switch to external wall?

>>2852651
Third voter dropping in to break any stalemate and vote for:

>Inner wall
>Use it only as demonstration

>>2852568
>Outer wall
>Start construction from the south so that the arriving people would hopefully not see incomplete areas

>>2852651
>demonstration
>outer wall

we already have a inner wall, we can build the outer first and then replace the inner

>>2852651
>Use it only as demonstration

>>2852721
>>2852719
>>2852700
>>2852690
>>2852622
>>2852605
>>2852600
Outer wall, technique demonstration. Got it, writing

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>>2852728
You decide that it would be a better idea to construct the external wall first. It would be easier to explain away and when finished it will protect the village during the inner wall construction. Yes, you would still be around, but it will decrease the headache of always being on guard and ready to pounce on something stupid enough to attack.

Your technique depends on telekinesis and minimal scaffolding while in reality humans utilized large variety of cranes, pulleys and other man or animal powered machines to make the process much easier. This will not only allow you to lie about villager involvement but also teach them necessary technologies for large scale construction which would help when town starts to grow. You won't always be around to build everything after all.

And thus you prepared an array of bronze tools as well as relatively light cranes and earth digging devices. These machines are designed to be disassembled and reassembled to follow the construction of the wall. It doesn't mean they weren't heavy though. The crane was four meters tall when deployed and it provided tension to a frame designed to place huge logs upright.

The actual construction process was not much different from your previous experience. A large ditch was dug, concrete was poured in and left there to form the hard bottom layer. Then logs were suspended standing upright on that base through the use of crane and frames while the second layer of concrete created a "gum" to hold the wood in place. After the section was done a second ditch was dug and the refuse dirt was piled behind the palisade for additional reinforcement.

Quite a few villagers were interested in at least observing the machines at work. Apparently the man with the broken hand was village's carpenter. He wasn't much help but he tried his best to learn. Smith showed up to test out his homemade prosthesis but unfortunately it broke under some modest stress. Other veterans also tried to hang out near to the construction site. Apparently crippled members of your village couldn't work much which was annoying them. They felt like they weren't earning their bread.

The wall was set up in about three and a half weeks and it looks pretty amazing. 3,5 meter tall palisade with three gates reinforced by wooden towers and several wooden watch towers dotted on the inner side of the perimeter. And not a day too soon. The government official has arrived to the village to assess the situation and collect the taxes. And he is not alone. There are half a dozen guards, two horse pulled carriages and a couple monster hunters who were probably hired as extra protection. Your skin has healed so you can go out and meet them...

>Walk out dressed as one of the villagers
>Walk out dressed in the under armor as a monster hunter
>Walk out with a heavy duty apron and some tools as an artisan
>Sidestep the liaison and talk to the monster hunters
>Do not meet them, hide
>Other?

>>2852874
>Other?
Step out to meet them wearing our White linen "chiton", seeing as that is the most appropriate thing for official / diplomatic business.

>>2852926
Sounds reasonable. Whom would you claim to be though?

>>2852943
A monster hunter that migrated to the region. If they look into it, it should check out with the local government and it explains our equipment, skills, associates, etc.

>>2852874
>Walk out dressed in the under armor as a monster hunter

We are the village defense force

>>2852926
>>2852958
>>2852975


I'm torn between the two so can we go in the civi clothes but also be armed, to make it clear that we still take contracts as a monster hunter. Maybe namedrop Haven and Sigrid if we need reference

>>2853002
We can just have a bow on us even if we wear a chiton I guess

>>2853002
I was going to suggest taking our aluminium-bronze shortsword with our semi-formal shit but I didn't know if we would have a easy way to carry it.

>>2852874
>Sidestep the liaison and talk to the monster hunters

>>2852926
>[Update] [Auto] 2
>>2852975
>>2853002
>>2853020
2 for chiton+ weapons and one for talking to monster hunters. Writing

You know, based on our adventures with Fourth Dimension Fuckery and dealing with the parasite, can't we jury-rig the other Manipulation abilities using Telekinesis as a base? Once we get Bio-manipulation, can't we then acquire the other Body types, as well?

>>2853166
We can jury rig some stuff with telekinesis but not all of it. It would take too much focus to use it as nanoassembler or something like that. However you might be able to figure out something cool involving subspace eventually. It might be easier to ally a biosculptor or to get a pod working again than to try to perform transhuman augmentation with nothing but telekinesis.

>>2853241
Ours is fully functional, just lacking a power source. Correct?

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>>2853044
This is an official meeting so you need some official clothes, right? You bolt to your house and quickly change to your chiton and tidy up your hair. However, on the other hand, you are a monster hunter and you would like the liaison to know that. You can't just wear armor on top of your official attire since it would defeat the purpose... but you can take some of your weapons. The halberd or a longbow would be an overkill but a sword should do just fine. You just apply a belt harness and attach your sidearm on before setting off to meet the official.

Village liaison turned out to be a man in his early forties. He has black hair and wears a thin goatee. If it was a movie this would be what bad guy would wear, but he ended up pretty reasonable even if a little snobbish. He checked everything, wrote down all the copper he took for taxes and started asking some questions about how did the village pull off so much renovation in just a couple years.

To answer this question you claimed to have helped the villagers with construction by using your heightened stamina and strength. After a small tour to the cranes and through the workshops he buys your explanation thanking you for saving this village. He claims that if it was destroyed it would have delayed expansion in this area for several hundred years.

He also questions village chief and you about the current issues with the village. You note vast lack of manpower and nearly avoided starvation. To your surprise he informs you that he will attempt to send more people to the village in the near future and recommends to expand the housing areas within the next couple months. Also from what it seems the regular army will soon relieve emergency militia which means that roughly at the same time the rest of the villagers should arrive back home.

Regarding starvation he checks the books and then informs you that the previous liaison was recently hanged for corruption and replacement grain will be delivered to the village before winter. He also claims to add some "apology goods" with that.

You also inform him of the creatures that you've killed and encountered. He notes that the copper mine should have been collapsed due to the discovered opening towards the Labyrinth. Those things are incredibly dangerous and he recommends you to make sure that it is sealed thoroughly. Preferably with thick layers of concrete and stone. Labyrinth holds some monsters which are extinct on the surface and they are known to be incredibly dangerous.

>>2853261
The tentacle parasite peeks his interest. Apparently similar infected animals were discovered to the west from Farsalos and they have been attacking minor settlements. The parasite seems to only target large mammals including humans who die and start behaving similar to zombies. Wandering in large groups, killing and consuming other people and so on. Apparently they are yet to encounter the "compound parasite" and the fact that it had telepathic abilities and claimed to do it for some "goddess" is troubling. He will report it to the nearby fort to investigate.

A trader that arrived to the village about a month and a half ago decided to provide some hauling services to liaison so he was also present with the crew. He has decided that he would like to trade with Farsalos more regularly and he would like to know what we want to see in store next time when he appears.

>Request seeds. Various seeds. Food seeds, grain seeds, industrial seeds
>Request rare goods. Salt, seeds of various herbs and spices
>Request food. With growing population it would be nice to have some in store. Especially something that we can't yet produce
>Request farm animals. Some cows would be nice or maybe even a horse
>Request raw materials. Metals, fabrics, oils and so on
>Other ideas? Maybe a little bit of platinum for pyrometer?

>>2853256
Yes, our pod is intact. However it is monolithic. We can't just open it with a crowbar and plug a cable in. We also would need a way to program it. The other pod is simpler but heavily damaged. We can only guarantee that when plugged into suffiient power it will finish existing person. Still it would help somewhat but we need more pods, more computers and more industries to pull off anything with pods.

>>2853267
>>Request farm animals. Some cows would be nice or maybe even a horse
>Request seeds. Various seeds. Food seeds, grain seeds, industrial seeds

with more people we can expand our fields to start producing some industrial materials as flax and cotton

>>2853267
We have chemicals for just about any raw materials we could need, and the ability to survey or custom order things as our industrial capacity increases. What we really need is an increase in manpower; we can't really EXPAND until we have other people to operate the various processes. Barring that, we need Seeds and Animals, as those are the only things we can't just build.

Yet.

>>2853275
That's fair enough. As long as the data and mechanisms used for the alteration are intact, and we have a viable power source, it should be as simple as finding a pod with the augments we want, studying them until we know how to not fuck it up horribly, installing them, and hitting the switch.

Granted, I expect that to take multiple years in-quest, but it gives us an excuse to go adventuring and follow up on rumors about various outsiders/Gods. After all, we know Elspeth's crew has at least ONE of each pod, and they already have the legwork done on how to augment others as proven by their cupbearers.

>>2853267
>Request seeds. Various seeds. Food seeds, grain seeds, industrial seeds
>Request rare goods. Salt, seeds of various herbs and spices

All the seeds

>>2853267
Also for those who are wondering, pyrometer is a device to remotely measure temperatures above about 400 degrees. It is a requirement for industrial steel manufacturing. It is a bit far off though since we don't even have small scale iron but it has to use platinum wire to operate.

>>2853279
>>2853291
>>2853293
Seeds, farm animals, rare goods, got it. Writing

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>>2853392
The trader notes the things you are interested in and would try to have some of them when he arrives. Due to the cost of animals it would take some time for the village to amass enough money to buy them. Unless you want to request something specific the villagers would trade on their own using the goods they create so you don't have to manually do that every couple weeks.

After the business was done you approached the monster hunters. The three adventurers were strangely uniform. It doesn't mean they didn't catch attention. Monster hunters are easily visible by unique weapons and equipment as well as sometimes obscene amount of trophies. These people were wearing some actual heavy bronze armor of similar designs with helmets covering their faces. They were equipped with weapons designed to pierce armor and one of them even had a heavy crossbow of sorts. They are probably a professional and well established team.

They weren't too talkative and seemed to be straight to business. They asked a little about the Labyrinth entrance nearby and what creatures can be found around the area. They confirmed that they have fought some of those tentacle parasites. Apparently parasite is capable of infecting people through forcing its way through the mouth. Luckily it has to be of a certain size. If it is smaller than a golf ball it doesn't have enough strength to force its way in while if it is too big to fit it would try to kill instead of infecting.

By the end of the day all goods were accounted for and the liaison set off back towards the civilization. Hunters informed you that they would like to show up eventually to check out that entrance if it won't get closed by then and also warned that the "goddess" part of the deal changes everything. They think that if the scouting party fails the gods would actually send a Cup Bearer or two to investigate. You thank them and return to your projects.

>The plan didn't change, we need to get the wall built
>The news about more parasites is worrying, maybe it is better to work on a way to counter them. Something incendiary maybe...
>If they send a Cup Bearer maybe it would be smart to seal and mask your lab? After all you have two whole pods and an H+ jumpsuit
>Other thoughts?

>>2853530
>If they send a Cup Bearer maybe it would be smart to seal and mask your lab? After all you have two whole pods and an H+ jumpsuit

>>2853530
>>The news about more parasites is worrying, maybe it is better to work on a way to counter them. Something incendiary maybe...
>>If they send a Cup Bearer maybe it would be smart to seal and mask your lab? After all you have two whole pods and an H+ jumpsuit


the outer is built and we still have the old inner, it can wait for now. those parasites are probabl the work of a pod person so we can't take it as something minor

>>2853582
This if we can do both. I imagine hiding the lab won't take long

>>2853571
>>2853582
>>2853598
Writing

Can we conduct Chemical Fusion using just our telekinesis? Can we practice it? We don't need to do so for large amounts, obviously, but being able to synthesize our own Platinum if we really needed to would be nice.

Far, far away from anything living, of course.

>>2853700
Fusion is a REALLY complicated process. You can't just get a bunch of hydrogen and run it. You need specific isotopes of it. Even then it would be pretty complicated. Maybe in the future you will get enough power to do so but you would still require "ammo" in the form of cryogenic tanks of isotopic pure deuterium, tritium, helium 3 and/or lithium depending on what reaction you want.

All modern transmutation is made in particle accelerators or fission because of that. It is easier to smash atoms and bombard with neutrons that way. Unfortunately it is still really difficult and the cost of materials is astronomical. It would be plain easier to extract platinum from plain dirt than making it through fusion at this point. Or you know, even easier way would be to find it and mine it or buy it. I don't see a way to get particles to required minimum 0.2c accurately enough through raw telekinesis, sorry.

>>2853666
If the threat is real enough the pantheon will send a cup bearer. And if the cup bearer discovers you this would mean the end of peaceful days. You need to hide anything which can be traced back to you being a pod person. However you have no idea how sensitive the Cup Bearers are. Especially considering psi active pod downstairs.

After some investigation you could feel weak psi emissions when in close proximity to the pod. You can't feel them beyond a couple meters but then again you are not a dedicated telepathy user. Thus the only thing you could do is to find a way to isolate the emission. Somehow. Let the experimentation montage begin!

It seems that the psychic emissions get partially absorbed by thick stone walls. You can no longer sense it after about half meter thick wall made out of granite. Lower density materials appear to have less effect on absorption as the same amount of wood only weakened the signal. Faraday cage or copper foil had no noticeable effect on the strength of the signal.

After a little more experimentation you decided to get some lead and made a helmet out of it. The signal was getting blocked several times better than the stone. With this revelation you encased both pods in a meter thick layer of lead just in case, moved all your high tech projects into the labs and used the emergency seal to plug it tight. After that you poured concrete over the hole and boarded the floor. Now it looks just like a normal cellar, hopefully.

Luckily for you the penicillin prototype lab was no longer needed as the bones healed well enough for the apparatus to be removed and the carpenter's arm was now encased in normal gypsum to let it heal further. Everything else should be fine and can be attributed to the ideas from Claudina. Her civilization had flowing water in the rich areas after all.

Now the problem with the weapons. It seems that the creatures are pretty resistant to pain and can function even if they are heavily damaged. However you think that if you can make a weapon that rips them apart or burns them it should work. In other words you need incendiary or explosive weapons.

Let's see what things you can get that burn well. There is hydrogen/oxygen reaction which is difficult to get due to the lack of cryogenic tanks. There is methane from the cesspit with similar issues. You also have ethanol and methanol which can be mass produced. There is sulfur and coal near to the geyser and you produce tar in the process of making charcoal. Hmm...

>Coal tar based napalm. It will need a primitive oil refinery to convert coal tar into something you can use though...
>Methanol. It is easier to mass produce and it is quite toxic but it doesn't stick to everything. Maybe some kind of primitive thermobaric device or a really short ranged flamethrower?
>Chlorate gunpowder. 1.5 times more potent than normal gunpowder but finicky and requires salt to make. At least it doesn't need saltpeter
>Other ideas?

>>2853861
>>Chlorate gunpowder. 1.5 times more potent than normal gunpowder but finicky and requires salt to make. At least it doesn't need saltpeter

>>2853861
>>Chlorate gunpowder. 1.5 times more potent than normal gunpowder but finicky and requires salt to make. At least it doesn't need saltpeter

>>2853907
>>2853910
Gunpowder it is. Writing

>>2853794
Actually, I just ran the math. The amount of actual force required to accelerate a neutron to 0.2c is so disgustingly small as to be negligible.

1.0042612e-19 kg/m/s^(2) to accelerate it over the course of a second. Granted, in that second it would likely leave our effective range.

6.0214007e-14 Newtons to have it hit that speed before it's reached 10 meters.

Since I fucked up my stuff by doing the math for Neutrons instead of tritium, multiply that by five to account for the difference in mass between a Tritium atom and a Neutron gets us 3.0107003e-13N
Which is still a disgusting amount of force.


As we already have a source of Lithium just waiting for refinement (unless I'm misremembering something) we can get all the Tritium we want that way.

The real issue, I assume, is having the control necessary to actually apply that force over a single pair of atoms, in opposite directions, while maintaining a perfect vacuum, and extracting the resulting composites. As well as all the finnicky calibrations to get the results we want.

Still, if we can get that level of control, we can effectively become our own Particle Accelerator, which is pretty fucking cool and my main reason for still arguing this point.

>>2854096
I agree with your point. The main issues would be maintaining near perfect vacuum while also somehow tracking that neutron along the path and doing it repeatedly millions of times a second. Because, you know, there are a lot of atoms in that golden target you want to transmute. Ramming a single atom into it won't do the weather.

Regarding lithium we do have lithium ore but refiement process promises to be a bitch since lithium is a really active metal. We can use it to go for tritium, yes but it is pretty far away.

In the end I think it can be possible. Just harder than building an actual particle accelerator from scratch.

>>2854148
True, but once we get the ability to accelerate individual particles at speeds high enough for fusion, we can effectively use telekinesis to jury-rig Particle Beams.

Would it be excessive? Yes. Would it be extremely inefficient in terms of effort? Yes. Would it be cool as hell?

FUCK YEAH!

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>>2854015
Gunpowder. One of the most important inventions in history. It was used in many forms throughout middle ages up to the point humans went to Mars. Nothing beats chemical explosives. Efficient and self contained method to turn anything you don't like into rubble and gibs. However how can you get your hands on some?

Classical design requires powdered 15% charcoal, 10% sulfur and 75% saltpeter. You have the coal and you have the sulfur but you have no saltpeter. Saltpeter is produced from human waste products and requires half a year to "brew" after which it is mainly used for fertilizer. You could shoot with it but the process is tedious and expensive.

This was the main limiting factor historically. Gunpowder greatly spiked in use when deposits of Chile saltpeter were discovered and when saltpeter production with electrolysis was made commercial. For most of middle ages cannons were just way too expensive to fire in comparison to literally any other weapon, not because they were not widely known.

Luckily for you there is an alternative. You have successfully managed to get yourself chlorine. There is an interesting historical what-if called chlorate gunpowder. It appeared at the same time as modern nitro- gunpowders which outperformed it before it went commercial. Just using potassium chlorate instead of saltpeter creates a gunpowder which is 1,5 times more powerful but much easier to detonate. The components have to be created separately and then mixed because it explodes from friction.

The process promises to be pretty infrastructure intensive forcing you to make a separate brick reinforced building to the east from the village. Just in case it, you know, blows up. After the building was assembled you started working on the production line.

Potassium chlorate is produced out of chlorine and potash. Potash is made by repeatedly pushing water through wood ash and then drying the resulting liquid. Pretty simple process to automate. You managed to create a large container with a water pump powered by telekinetic generator making as much potash as you can ever need. After that all you needed was a tiny windmill on top of the facility. All it needs is just another step of getting boiled with slacked lime to get caustic potash and you are golden.

>>2854237
The second component is the chlorine. Chlorine is made by electrolyzing water with chlorine salt mixed into it. The process requires direct current and the only way you can think of how to do it is with a huge battery. And just a Baghdad battery won't do it. You need something similar to Volt's experiment. A battery made out of copper and zinc instead of iron and copper. This allows for 1.1 volt of potential difference. By combining enough of these plates Volt has managed to ignite an electric arc.

Then you just need to add caustic potash into electrolyzer. Chlorine immediately reacts and produces desired chemical as a sediment. Bingo. Potassium chlorate is a well known pyrotechnic material which is explosive on its own but you need to go further. You made several pulverizers to reduce the three components into fine dust and then mixed them together. And then you had the Martian Watney moment. Aka after minor celebration you are thrown out of the building due to a powerful explosion. Ow.

Apparently it is incredibly easy to ignite in this state. It gets ignited from static electricity. It needs to be stored in tiny tightly wound up packages with powdered graphite to reduce static charge buildup. You need to mix it in wet state along with some kind of binding agent. Historically it was a type of wine but what are you? Made out of gold? After a short experimentation and a couple of door replacements you have finally managed to produce granules of the gunpowder by using soap as binding agent.

Now you have yourself some gunpowder! The question is how should you use it...

>Bronze cannons! Expensive but worth it, right?
>Grenades! Yeah they'll have to be made out of copper but they should still work, right?
>Warheads! Explosive arrow heads for your bow and the village's scorpios
>Fougasse! Large bombs for telekinetic or mechanized throwing that deal damage mostly through blast wave and heat
>Mines! You can't be trialed in Hague of there is no Hague left
>Other?

>>2854244
>Warheads! Explosive arrow heads for your bow and the village's scorpios
>Fougasse! Large bombs for telekinetic or mechanized throwing that deal damage mostly through blast wave and heat
>Mines! You can't be trialed in Hague of there is no Hague left

>>2854264
support

>>2854244
>Other? Actually, you remember an old concept involving gunpowder as a way of producing reliable kinetic force...

Gunpowder engine, get?

>>2854333
If i remember correctly, it was disproven by mythbusters. You can run an engine on powdered coal though and you can get fuel out of distilling coal tar like petroleum. In any case no engines until we have at least some steel and machining. If you meant rockets it would be more applicable but they are just terrible in accuracy before primitive guidance becomes a thing.

>>2854264
>>2854277
>>2854333
Warheads, fougasses and mines it is then, writing

>>2854350
Was it? Aww, video games lied to me!

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>>2854353
Now that you have gunpowder what do you do with it. Knee jerk reaction is cannons. However they need specialized manufactoriums to get produced and are hard to maintain and operate. They would not become amazing until cast iron becomes cheap. That is how Great Britain managed to get their fleet to rule the waves. Their guns were just three times cheaper than bronze cannons so they had three times the firepower per ship.

Then the only way to use gunpowder is in explosives. Various mines and warheads. However the main problem with them is fuses. The easiest fuses are timed fuses. They are just a strip of material burning at predictable speed. Manufacturing various mixtures is not problematic in your gunpowder workshop and they are just lit up before firing.

Unfortunately this approach has a few problems. First of all it is dangerous for the operator. The warhead has to get enough time to get lit up well enough and thrown. It is not detonated on impact or even after a pulled pin. Those things require more advanced designs. And you don't even have machining yet...

Well, time to get a lathe then. This lathe is powered through telekinetic motor and it can only work on copper due to the lack of instrumental steel for the tool heads but it is sufficient to fix the irregularities after casting process. In the end you come up with several types of mildly mass produced fuses.

There is a mine fuse activated by a pressure plate and equipped with a switch based safety mechanism so that it can be armed and disarmed relatively easily. The top of the mine is painted bright red for the villager safety. Most mammals can't understand the difference between red and green color due to bi-chromatic vision while humans can easily notice it due to millennia of evolution required to find fruit in the greenery. The explosive itself is a shortened version of fougasse charge with cast bronze hull with ribs designed specifically for directed fragmentation. Anything standing on top of the mine has two seconds before it and all of its neighbors get shredded by a storm of shrapnel.

The second type of fuse is long timed fuse similar to scaled up grenade fuse. It is designed for fougasse explosives. These large bronze barrels don't have fragmentation ribs. Instead the damage would be dealt by intense heat and shockwave of the blast. These things are designed to be flung at long distances by your powers or something like a trebuchet similarly to long range artillery taking out clusters of enemies. Until you get on to building counter-siege weapons they would only be available to you.

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>>2854441
The third type of fuse is a direct impact fuse. It is triggered by sudden deceleration of a projectile. It is designed as arrow warheads for your bow and bolts for scorpios. The safety is provided by a ring similar to grenades. The scorpio operator team was sequentially drilled into safe operation of the weapon for several days and a small supply of these devices was placed in a reinforced area of the cellar below the guard post.
After the process was polished enough you focused on producing a large batch of these new weapons. Who knows how many you'd need. Just in case they are stored in a standalone underground reinforced vault to the east from the village but still within the external wall.

Now you can finally return to the wall construction. You won't destroy inner wall before replacement is ready but the process involves massive foundation works. You need to make sure the wall stands on the bedrock because else it would sink and bedrock is still pretty deep. You manage to finish only about a quarter of the foundations before you have to stop. There is a visitor. A suspiciously pretty woman with vibrant blue eyes and curly light brown hair wearing some kind of heavily decorated red dress. She has an expensive looking scabbard with a large sword on her back. Villagers fall on their knees when she approaches. So... the scouting party fucked up as it seems.

>Mimic after the villagers
>Show respect but don't bow so hard
>Don't bow at all
>Avoid contact with the Cup Bearer
>Other suggestions on how to approach this?

>>2854445

>Don't bow at all


she pretty

>>2854445
>>Show respect but don't bow so hard

>>2854445
>Show respect but don't bow

No need to bow, our cover story is ancient blood after all.

>>2854456
Let's see if she is not a bitch first, Ag has a thing for red tho kek

>>2854456
Well if you are making a self aware servant being from the ground up why not make them aesthetically pleasing, right? By certain "design" decisions it is possible to even figure out a creator. For example Valentina's Cup Bearers are almost all blonde women and look... well endorsed. In comparison Yawgmoth's Cup Bearers appear to have synthetic- looking body parts while still maintaining human face and shape.

>>2854486
So Valentina is into Real Estate then.

Having huge...tracts of land on hand, at all times~

>>2854486
valencia has good taste then.
Maybe we can show red girl our sauna, we haven't shown it to anyone kek

>>2854456
>>2854465
>>2854471
Looks like respect but no extreme bowing it is. Writing

>>2854555
Night qm, see ya

File: Matilda wings gif.gif (7.4 MB, 811x737)

7.4 MB GIF

>>2854555
You decide to show some respect to the Cup Bearer but falling on your knees is a bit too far. While all other villagers drop as soon as they realize who this person is you politely bow a little. This kind of makes you stand out but it is also not outright insulting to the newcomer.

The woman proudly proclaims that she is Matilda, one of Nike's Muses of Victory(accent on the e', like a greek goddess and definitely NOT like an ancient sports brand) and that they should not bow to her as she was not made for worship. Her voice has strange echoing to it making it sound a little ethereal. It is also energetic and filled with determination.

Matilda notices that you haven't bowed as hard, looks you over and then says "You must be huntress Agatha, correct? I've heard about your deeds. Honestly I expected you to be a more devoted worshipper of Nike' as she is a patron of hunters. However I can respect skill and success. I am sure this village is well protected with you alone! Let the odds ever be in your favor!". As she says it her eyes glow and ethereal wings appear behind her back after which they fade just as quickly as they appeared. You are pretty sure that she does not understand what she is referencing with her "prayer" which is somewhat amusing. Luckily you can manually kill the laughter before it even happens.

She then informs the villagers that she will have to use the village as a staging ground for her investigation. Apparently the scouting team was lost and then several days later the border fort was overrun completely. The situation is under control but the western border army is under daily attacks by mutated animals and the shells of infected humans. It was decided that Cup Bearer's strike from a flank should behead the invading monsters. Matilda thanks you for the discovery of the "node creatures".

As she will have to stay in the village and prepare she request some lodgings. Usually people provide her with the spot in the local temple to Nike' or to combined pantheon temple, however in case it does not exist any living space would do.

>Offer lodgings in the temple. Unfortunately it is not equipped for habitation at the moment and is basically a fancy empty hall with a spot for preaching
>Offer lodgings in the temple but proceed to manufacture her a bed and some furniture so it is less uncomfortable
>Offer lodgings in a spare building. It should be more than enough, right?
>Offer lodgings in your private home. Fanciest option but kind of close to all the secret shit

>>2854634
As there were no votes for a while I will now go to sleep. Voting continues until I wake up and get some food. Good night guys.

>>2854634
>Offer lodgings in the temple but proceed to manufacture her a bed and some furniture so it is less uncomfortable
Decorate it huntsman lodge styleish, considering she is a cup bearer of a hunting goddess that would seem appropriate.

Housing at home would be a more personal choice if we didn't have huge pods of giveaways hidden there.

>>2854634
>Offer lodgings in your private home. Fanciest option but kind of close to all the secret shit

We can show her our sauna

>>2854634
>Offer lodgings in the temple but proceed to manufacture her a bed and some furniture so it is less uncomfortable

>>2854634
>Offer lodgings in the temple but proceed to manufacture her a bed and some furniture so it is less uncomfortable

>>2854634
as much as I would like to invite her to our house, there is the matter of the pods

>Offer lodgings in the temple but proceed to manufacture her a bed and some furniture so it is less uncomfortable

I want to learn more about her, especially if she was always like this or was raised to be a cup-bearer, what did she do before that and all

>>2854806
>>2855077
>>2855147
>>2855151
>>2855161
Ok I am finally back and we can start. Writing

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>>2855553
Matilda requested an opportunity to stay in the village temple. The sheer fact that she requested and not demanded already makes her seem nicer that you've imagined a Cup Bearer. Unfortunately the temple is not fit for permanent habitation. It consists of a large internal room decorated with ceramic columns and colored tiles with a place for the priest and seats for the visitors. It does have a small office, some plumbing and a cellar with a tunnel leading directly to the shelter complex but they were not meant to live in.

It lacks sufficient accommodation. There is no bed and even though you have added a small bathroom it doesn't have a shower. The large white room would not be comfortable to sleep in either. You need to make it much more comfortable. The first order of business is to break up the room into several pieces. There is a reason why actual inhabited rooms in mansions are not enormous. Living rooms, corridors or diners can be huge but not bedrooms. Too huge bedrooms cause subconscious reactions in human brains associated with sleeping without shelter. This makes people feel less safe and thus lowers the effectiveness of sleep.

Luckily you have been making a huge amount of treated wood for all the numerous construction projects so all you needed to do was to plank it. The resulting planks had nice dark brown color and after intense sanding and a little burning they received a nice rustic texture for that "hunter's cabin in the woods" appearance. After that it was just a process of assembling frames in the temple and planking over them. Like a modern modular house but without the synthetic insulation. To prevent any issues you have asked a few villagers to help you with hauling and assembling so in the end it would look like a large team effort. As a nice bonus it would be easy to tear down and reuse for other buildings once she moves out.

Now that the rooms were made it is time to get some furniture. An actual bed with linen sheets, a wardrobe, a chest with a simple numerical lock as well as a table and a few chairs in the dining room and some other small things like copper oil lamps and kitchen utensils. After all you had to make all this stuff for other houses so it was almost automatic for you. Unfortunately there was no way to plug in a bath or a shower. Luckily public bath is a thing so it should not be a major problem.

>>2855758
Wow, at this rate you could have pulled off a career as hotel architect. Cup Bearer is impressed with how quickly you've managed to organize all of this stuff. As a follower of a goddess of war and hunt she only carried the most needed items such as her weapons, rations and tools and when she heard of the state of the village initially she expected that she would have to just camp somewhere nearby.

She was most surprised by the fact that the village had running water. Such luxury is only available in the capital and pantheon- only areas. You explain it away as something you've learned from Claudina as the Town had centralized water supply. Matilda was surprised that the elf girl pulled off such a long trip as a path to Town is dangerous even for a Cup Bearer at times.

You are curious about the Cup Bearer. But it won't be polite to just start asking her questions. You should

>Suggest to make a minor celebration for her arrival. She is a Muse of Victory so celebrations should be something she might be interested in.
>Offer her to hunt with you. The giant wolves would probably be a worthy prey for a follower of a hunt goddess
>Give her a tour of the village and try to strike up a conversation
>Leave her to rest. She is probably pretty tired after her trip. Can Cup Bearers even tire?
>Other?

>>2855765
>>Offer her to hunt with you. The giant wolves would probably be a worthy prey for a follower of a hunt goddess

this is her thing, she will feel most confortable

we can make a celebration later with whatever we bring back

>>2855765
>Offer her to hunt with you. The giant wolves would probably be a worthy prey for a follower of a hunt goddess

>>2855768
+1

>>2855777
>>2855773
>>2855768
Writing

>>2855862
Nike' is a goddess of hunt. So her follower is probably interested in hunting, right? The area to the north- east of the village has a quite large population of aggressive saber-tooth wolf- like creatures which can provide for sufficient challenge. Also to be fair you are interested how these things taste. Normal wolf meat is nearly tasteless and has a strong smell making it unappealing to most other predators.

Matilda is indeed quite interested but it seems that she wants to see you in action more than hunting herself. She is worried about the safety of the village, however. You reassure her that the western village border is thoroughly booby trapped and if something does appear you would be able to hear the siren and quickly return. The device is simple enough to not fear for your secret.

However, you have only defeated the wolves with telekinesis before. These creatures dwarf grizzly bears and have dangerous teeth and claws and their hides are thick enough to make normal arrows inefficient. You need to grab or make some gear to successfully kill them without exposing your full power. Matilda knows that you are stronger than a normal human but she has no idea of how powerful you truly are.

>Roll 5d20 for hunting success

>Take a normal war bow. If you hit them in vulnerable spots you should kill them in a couple shots showing off our skill
>Take a super draw weight bow. Its full bronze arrows should be sufficient to penetrate the skulls of these beasts but it would show off our strength
>Take along a scorpio. While difficult to transport for a human it is not outside the realm of possibility while maintaining damage similar to your bow
>Take along your full armor and a polearm. Polearms are effective enough against bears and if played right it would look pretty impressive while not too outside of human limits
>Other ideas?

Rolled 6, 18, 7, 16, 12 = 59 (5d20)

>>2856012
>>Take a super draw weight bow. Its full bronze arrows should be sufficient to penetrate the skulls of these beasts but it would show off our strength
>Take along your full armor and a polearm. Polearms are effective enough against bears and if played right it would look pretty impressive while not too outside of human limits


both of this only give away super strength, something she already expect us to have

>>2856028
Strangely few votes but ok then. Writing

>>2856117
I came late, but yeah, I would have voted similarly

>>2856028
I would also support this.

Rolled 11, 11, 5, 11, 14 = 52 (5d20)

>>2856012
Had things in life but heres a roll!

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>>2856117
Cup Bearer already knows that you are stronger than normal people. This is rare but not unheard of for the locals to have a remnant of ancient blood in them. Thus you just put on all your armor and grab your gear. Your halberd and bow should be sufficient to kill these creatures reliably.

Matilda takes her sword and a strange looking bow. From a glance it looks to consist out of some type of polymer or plastic and it is decorated by a generous amount of incredibly fine engravings with pictures and texts which get smaller and smaller until they are too small to read without a microscope. From what you can see normally they mainly depict certain myths related to Nike'.

You make last checks on the mine field ensuring that it is armed and that all villagers are instructed NOT to leave the external wall you set off towards the wolf infested area.

It doesn't take you long to find the wolves once you get there. Or more accurately, you bump into a lone wolf. The creature appears to be heavily wounded with deep lacerations across the hide. They don't fit the shapes of their large teeth and the angles and limping seem to suggest that the wolf was hit hard several times by an oversized Morningstar of sorts. Probably some kind of natural weapon of a yet unknown monster. By the request of Matilda you put it out of the misery by a well aimed shot right between the eyes while it was growling and slowly approaching you. You don't take anything from it.

The next encounter happens in the deeper forest where you could correctly conceal yourself. A small group of four adult giant wolves. One of them is larger than others and is covered in old scars. Probably that's their leader. Matilda silently flies up into the canopy as she wants to observe what you can do. To be honest you are a bit nervous. You are pretty sure you can overpower the wolf if you are in trouble but four is just a little bit too far. In case of emergency you will be forced to use telekinesis.

The best way to deal with the pack is to eliminate the leadership. With the leader killed other wolves would be confused for a short while which would allow you to place another shot. Your arrows weight almost a kilogram and most of the damage is caused through blunt trauma. Thus you maneuver behind the pack and shoot the leading wolf directly in the base of the spinal cord. The arrow manages to pierce the hide but most importantly it severed the spine causing the beast to collapse and die quickly.

Other wolves don't act like you've planned and they just rush you at high speed. You manage to kill one with a head shot but you only hit the other in the shoulder blade before you run out of breathing room and are forced to equip the halberd. You dodge one of the giant claws as you thrust the spearhead into the neck of one of the wolves. The tip snaps and gets lodged somewhere into the neck but this is not lethal for the creature. Shit, this is bad.

File: That counts as one!.gif (3.35 MB, 497x280)

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>>2856510
You attempt to break off and gain distance but wolves are faster than you on foot and they quickly catch up. Halberd's pole breaks like a tooth pick but this gives you an opening to use the creature's size to your advantage. You dash below it and cram your sword into the neck. The blade penetrates and damages the nerve causing the beast to wail in pain as you repeat the attack. The creature collapses as it suffocates with its own blood.

The last wolf pounces on you but you manage to barely dodge out at the cost of losing half of your back carapace. Enough with the games! You dash for the tree and wall run a couple of steps before backflipping on the wolf's back as it rams the tree in surprise. After that you pull out the bow and finish it off with a shot directly into the skull Legolas style.

Wow, this feels exhilarating and much more interesting than telekinetic hunting. Maybe you could do that more often. Maybe wrestle a bear or two. You were so occupied with this sensation that you have almost missed a fifth wolf trying to sneak up on you. Almost. You twist and quickly shoot it. Your arrow hits a second before it is hit by another arrow from somewhere in the trees.

Cup bearer is speechless. She compliments your skill and says that she expected this trip to be a lesson in hubris with her having to save you at the last second. However you ended up stronger and more skillful than people gave you credit for. She apologizes for her previous opinion and her tone switches from energetic and booming to a respectful voice one would use when talking to an equal. She claims that with this skill you could eventually become a national hero. Maybe it would one day get you a pass to become a Cup Bearer like her. You should feel proud.

>Ask her about herself
>Ask her about her patron deity
>Ask her about Cup Bearers
>Suggest her to just hunt along with you since they came here for it
>Collect the trophies. Those dark grey hides look amazing
>Other?

>>2856538
>>Ask her about her patron deity
>>Ask her about Cup Bearers
>>Suggest her to just hunt along with you since they came here for it

A friendly hunt. You've had your fun, now it's her turn to show off. And demonstrate what we can expect in terms of power from a Cup Bearer.

>>2856538
>>2856563
Oh and
>Collect the hides
While we ask her the questions and chat about being a cup bearer.

>>2856538
>Ask her about herself
>Suggest her to just hunt along with you since they came here for it
>Collect the trophies. Those dark grey hides look amazing

ask how she became one, and some other things about her

let's see her sweat.....try not to blush

>>2856538
>Ask her about herself
>Ask her about Cup Bearers
>Suggest her to just hunt along with you since they came here for it

>>2856586
>>2856580
>>2856568
>>2856563
Writing

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>>2856706
To her words you reply that you accept the apology and suggest to continue the hunt like you initially intended. She sighs and says that this is fair. After all you must also be curious about her abilities and she wants to warm up a little before her mission anyway.

Before you set off for the hunt you decide to collect some trophies. Mainly the undamaged hides of these wolves and their long fangs. The hides will make a fine cloak to replace your now thoroughly destroyed cape. As you work on the bodies you chat up Matilda about various subjects.

Her patron goddess Nike' is much tamer than from what you've heard of her. While she hangs around battles she seems to treat her position as a job. She is a goddess of war not because she enjoys it or gets sustenance from it but because this is her duty to uphold. Nike' is described to be incredibly skilled, physically strong and agile to the point of no one being capable to parry her even once. She sometimes enjoys masking as a monster huntress and hunting creatures which terrorize some random settlement she visits. Matilda claims that she rarely shows any emotion and is always straight to business. Her Cup Bearers are kept under relatively strict army discipline while "on duty" while they are left to do what they want when "off duty".

Nike' seems to have a valkyrie approach to getting cup bearers. She herself or her Muses of Battle observe the war zones for promising individuals who are uplifted to become Muses. The process is rigorous and not everyone survives. Those who are not mentally prepared can die or be discarded back to the populace even before they get their powers. If they are discarded they are known to suffer from nightmares and die within several years from various circumstances. Her Cup Bearers are called Muses and they represent certain aspects of their patron such as sport, warfare, valor, victory, hunting and so on. She has no idea how the process actually happens and just states that Nike' passes down a part of her power. The powers always include a perfect physique with inhuman strength, agility and so on while the natural talents of the candidates get vastly improved.

Matilda herself claims to be a former huntress about 90 years ago who has almost died to some powerful beast and tried to sacrifice herself to allow for the town to let farmers in and seal the gates. She was saved by Nike' who was masking as a newbie huntress and she was impressed by Matilda's attitude. After a brutal trial she was allowed to become a Muse of Valor and later as she gained renown she became a Muse of Victory. Matilda claims that she has been a loyal follower of her patron ever since.

>>2857169
After the chat you set off to hunt something actually edible. The wolf meat ended up smelling terrible and you no longer wanted to try it. Matilda easily outperformed you and caught three deer as you only managed to catch two boars. When she hunts she is incredibly quiet, she never missed a single shot and it was hard to constantly track her position as she appears to be trained specifically to somehow shake off attention from herself when she is seen. If you won't use your telekinesis and extra senses you might actually lose to her in direct confrontation.

After the fulfilling hunt the two of you return to the village and organize a minor celebration. After the feast Matilda claims that she will try to scout the threat tomorrow night and offers you to join her if you manage to fix your gear in time. You think that you can squeeze one more thing along with the repairs.

>Nah, she's got this
>Just fix up everything that was damaged during the hunt and rest
>Build a replacement shield. It is long overdue
>Tan and process the hides. Heracles had a nice cloak and so should you
>Manufacture more ordnance for yourself. More explosive arrows. Maybe some grenades
>Beef up the village defenses. Beef up the mine field and make a couple of counter siege engines
>Other?

>>2857180
>>Just fix up everything that was damaged during the hunt and rest

>>2857180
>Just fix up everything that was damaged during the hunt and rest

>>2857180
>>Build a replacement shield. It is long overdue

>>2857180
>Just fix up everything that was damaged during the hunt and rest
>Build a replacement shield. It is long overdue

We need protection that is not from our powers

>>2857189
>>2857228
>>2857240
>>2857351
Writing

>>2857358
You decide to participate in the expedition. However you need to replace all the damaged gear. While you are harder than your armor you still need a way to protect yourself. Else people would discover your true nature. Thus while all the people retire for the night you walk to the forge and investigate the damage.

Wolf claw has managed to cut through the back carapace and through more than half of the gambeson. Just a little more and it would be completely through. Your halberd is also completely gone. There is no way to repair it, only smelt the shards and replace it. Luckily the rest of the armor is not damaged. All you need to do is to replace a good chunk of gambeson and to forge new chestplate and halberd.

Repairing gambeson is not a problem. You just sew in more and more layers in the damaged area and then replace the external layer so it looks intact. That has almost no effect on the defensive properties. The more layers it has the better it protects. It takes about two hours of work to completely restore it.

With the aluminum bronze the things are a bit different. Aluminum bronze has noticeably more volume while molten meaning that it needs special techniques to cast. In addition it has to be smelted several times to increase the quality and has a higher melting point but with the new forge it is much less annoying to maintain than your initial attempts.

While you were planning the process a thought has occurred in your head. Villagers are asleep, it would be a real jerk move to start forging now. Thus you need to postpone the process until people are awake. You decide to prepare the wooden pole and also replacement for your shield. It is long overdue and would help a lot with protecting yourself against the mace- like tentacles. Now you have access to treated wood so preparations don't take long and you are left with about six hours until sunrise.

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>>2857541
So you decide to finally catch some sleep since you haven't done that for month. You set up the window cover to hit you directly in the eye when sun rises and flop on your bed. The dream is strange. You once again see that girl from the pod vision. She is celebrating her birthday. Her father, a slightly chubby man with a balding line cuts the cake while her mother sits nearby. A bunch of her classmates are sitting at the table too. She feels happy. You wish you had birthdays like that. Since about third grade you stopped inviting your classmates and then it ended up into just a day when you can play video games beyond the regular study restrictions. You strangely feel like you are sitting at the table along with the kids but you no longer feel "small" which makes you feel a bit awkward. Luckily no one seems to notice your existence.

You wake up in the morning feeling conflicted. Was that your dream about that girl or was it the effect of the pod? Was the insulation insufficient? Luckily for you Cup Bearer doesn't seem to have telepathic powers because she doesn't confront you or act somehow different so you dodged that bullet. The rest of the day is spend to recreate your equipment and you are ready before the start of the expedition. It will happen throughout the night to help with the concealment. You have to wrap up your armor in sackcloth bandages to hide it and after double checking the mine field you and Matilda set off in the direction of the presumable parasite hive.

>Roll 1d20 for encounter

Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>2857547

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>2857547

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>2857547

Rolled 6 (1d20)

>>2857547

Rolled 8 (1d20)

>>2857547

>>2857651
>>2857639
>>2857623
>>2857596
>>2857557
Whoo boy, writing

>>2857667
Man we have to start helping that pod kid when the cup bearer leaves, she is trapeed in those dreams now I think

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>>2857667
Wherever the parasite base is it is not within a walking distance that's for sure. You have to walk for several days until you start encountering first signs of infected animals. The two of you decide that trying to bash your way in would attract too much attention and you can't stand up to an entire army. Thus you decide to sneak in instead and try to find the queen creature and then destroy it. If you are lucky it would produce the same psychic pulse like the thing you've killed and cauterize the entire area. You have taken a fougasse charge with you just for the occasion.

As you follow the increasing concentrations of infected animals you start finding more and more of those compound creatures. Some consist out of just several merged animal carcasses while others are comparable to elephants. You are lucky to observe one of the creatures merging. A heavily bloated bear exploded into a pile of gore leaving a large tentacle blob which immediately caught several nearby infected animals and consumed them. After that it deformed gaining a weird amalgamation of some of their traits like growing thick hide, random eyes dysfunctional jaws and other stuff. Really fast and disturbing with gurgling noises and foul smell.

As you continue making your way deeper into the area trees start missing the foliage and are covered with strange pulsing vines and the ground is covered in grayish foul smelling brown organic sludge of sorts. From the tree tops you manage to see the tip of the problem. There is something alive and large several miles away poking above the tree line.

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>>2857867
You also start encountering mutated people en masse and remains of some kind of town covered in pulsing vines and sludge. It was made out of stone and seems to be pre- bronze construction with main furnace area in the middle and tightly packed tiny rooms. It used to look like one large circular stone building but unfortunately now it is just rubble and "zombies".

The closer you get to that object the more psi emissions you start picking up and Matilda feels uneasy. She can't zone out the psychic influence as well as you and she claims to hear repeating chant in her head in a language she doesn't recognize. "...P'autag fta sha Musha'- Guggatt ang ftas sha ghu'ftg raftft su ha' knaat ang shuun ial ghush ha' ftaung..." You also stop seeing tentacle beasts and start seeing differently mutated humans. They were obviously altered but they are not mindless animals. They wear strange robes instead of tattered rags, they carry items and weapons and they seem to follow patrol routes. They are also chanting in chorus exactly the same stuff as is transmitted from the Hive.

Then you finally get to the edge of the tree line and see the object for yourself. It is a strange immobile enormous creature sitting in a large crater. Pulsing vines spread from the creature and dig into the ground like roots and the surface looks closer to a goo covered layer of fleshy skin. The territory nearby is patrolled by small marching formations of similarly mutated humans, large hound- like creatures and strange walking behemoths the size of six story buildings. They don't seem to be the same as the parasite blobs. More like they were twisted into their shapes instead of being tentacle filled bags of flesh.

Then suddenly the marching stops and all creatures synchronously turn to face you and you feel a powerful ringing sound in your head which overpowers your ability to zone it out. You hear words spoken by a woman in a mocking fashion:

"Welcome! Did you really think I haven't seen you by those millions of eyes and in that storm of psychic energy? What do you think of the design by the way? Disgusting? Well, dear, you need to learn to change your perspective sometimes! Oh, so you came here to defeat me? Did they really send just a girl with some resistance to mind reading and a lackey? These "gods" are even dumber than I thought! "Holies" at least sent a whole squad of their so- called "angels". Never understood what's with all the imagery if you don't have the original religion around. Oh well, let's make it a little fairer for you. I will face you personally if you manage to fight your way to my home. Kill me and you can save your pitiful nation from destruction. And a few nearby nations too. Good luck!"

After that the creatures shake in a minor convulsion and fill the air with horrifying screams. The closest two squadrons of mutated pikemen rush towards you. "One can't just throw all their forces the moment heroes show up, right?"

>>2857877
>Roll 1d20 for combat!
Strategy suggestions are allowed btw.

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>2857880
>close rapidly and get inside the arch of the pike, then start smashing them.

>>2857880
Remember to check the local subspace for trans-dimensional flanking maneuvers.

Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>2857880
Oh also, roll.

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>2857880
shiiiiiit, fuck, it's a pod person not an experiment that went wrong

use our bor to thin their numbers while we advance, defend with teleknesis but still use our armor and shield to fake it, Matilda will be too busy herself to notice. If we see Matilda is going to die we go full power

Rolled 5 (1d20)

>>2857966
>>2857901
>>2857898

All these

>>2858001
>>2857966
>>2857906
>>2857898
Writing. And as you've guessed it, things will get hard. Open wide

>>2858022
Are we using bronze-shafted arrows, or just bronze heads?

>>2858041
We currently have 30 full bronze 1kg kinetic arrows and 30 impact fuse explosive arrows.

>>2858049
...how quickly can we accelerate a bronze arrow mid-flight using TK?

What I'm thinking of is an Orbital KKV, where shaped tungsten rods are dropped from orbit and gain significant enough speed and force to become radiation-free WMDs, impacting with devastatingly explosive levels of kinetic force. If we can achieve even remotely similar force using the arrows as a vehicle for it...

>>2858065
We haven't trained kinetic throw on projectiles. Theoretically you can potentially mimic a certain Railgun and beyond but so far the hardest you've thrown something was a log while you were under affect. The result was comparable to light naval artillery. We currently lack control to track and accelerate your arrows with telekinesis.

>>2858084
That's a shame. We need to spend less time building industry and more time leveraging the excessive potential we already possess.

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>>2858022
Well, you can't step down from such a generous offer right? Rapidly you scan the battlefield. It seems that all opponents will be fully organic. Luckily none of them seems to shift out of the reality. You decide to keep gravity ping to yourself for now as it would probably be easily visible both to the mad goddess and to your companion. Looks like no four dimensional fuckery for this fight. Let's boogie.

The two of you glance at each other and equip your bows. Matilda has vastly more arrows while you only have 60. 30 heavy kinetic arrows and 30 explosive arrows. Luckily for you these mutated humans are not too difficult to kill. They still have vital organs and your arrows can kill 3-4 of them at a time. A direct hit to the head pops them like 50 cal pops a melons. The two of you focus down one of the mutant phalanxes to the point they lose formation and then you leap in and close for melee.

Cup Bearer closes in shortly after and the mutant group is slaughtered in quick successions allowing you to recover some arrows. The process is repeated with the other group. However as you close in to melee an organic pod is launched in a high ballistic arc from one of the larger monsters. Not wanting to see what it does you immediately reverse. And just in time. It turns out that the pod is filled with some potent corrosive fluid which melts off the skin off the mutants and quickly kills them.

"Whoops, butter fingers. In any case time for a second wave. Nice divide and conquer right there! Keep it up. And damn girl, how heavy are those arrows? You are carrying 60 kilos of them! Let's see what you can do against being swarmed. Go, my little Zerglings... I mean Hounds. Ah you don't get the reference anyway." All the dog- creatures on this half of the crater suddenly aggro on the two of you.

They have annoying reflex to "drunk walk" as they run making it incredibly hard to hit for both of you forcing you to stop firing and prepare for melee. 18 kinetic and 30 explosive arrows remaining. You manage to kill the "dogs" relatively easily but there are so many of them your polearm loses too much energy chopping and you can't keep up. At the current rate you will get swarmed.

Think, what can you do. Implode all of them! No, this will be way too obvious. Wait, what was that redhead hoplite girl's power in that old show? Oh, right. She had control over magnetism and used it to position her weapons faster than her muscles allowed her to hide her power's nature from rivals. Maybe you can do the same. With a little more focus you manage to add additional acceleration to your shield and halberd and the desperate chopping turned into a literal meat grinder. This technique has some promise and you might want to train it when you get out of this mess.

Muse of Victory seems to be doing just fine. She appears to abuse her ability of flight to jump out of the swarm and to its edge to break the encirclement and her sword chops them like butter. Nice.

>>2858169
After the next ten minutes the battlefield runs out of dogs and mad goddess announces: "Not sure what I expected here to be honest. Probably for you to eventually tire out or something. Let's try some combined army approach." As she says that a projectile wheezes just past your head!

The mutant pikemen formations rearrange themselves between you and the building while strange hovering mutants with tentacles instead of legs spit barbed bone spikes in your direction at regular intervals. Some remaining dogs were also called in but they will take a minute or two to get in effective range. Crap.

>Roll 1d20 to continue the fight!
Strategies welcome

Rolled 3 (1d20)

>>2858173
we have to take out those ranged units, we are faster than their melee so focus fire on them

Rolled 1 (1d20)

>>2858173
Use our kinecfic to enhance our blows

Rolled 7 (1d20)

>>2858190
holy shit, if things get too rough we take matilde and bail out of here

Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>2858173
Use the shield, create cover, advance until you can use the enemy as improvised cover.

Rolled 12 (1d20)

>>2858173

>>2858202
>>2858198
>>2858194
>>2858190
>>2858187
Niiiice crit. Writing

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>>2858259
Your immediate reaction to the incoming fire is to cover yourself with a shield. Several projectiles immediately impact it and manage to get stuck a third way through the goddamn shield! Your companion manages to deflect several projectiles with her sword but one hits her in the shoulder bouncing off as a wave of golden light spreads from the impact point. Force fields, really? Unfortunately it seems to strain the girl as she loses balance for a moment and holds her forehead with her hand.

You position yourself between the ranged units and reinforce it with some repelling effect to slow down the projectiles enough for them to bounce off. As soon as Muse is back into the action you shout at her to advance using you as cover. This allows the two of you to shorten the distance to the ranged formation and Matilda even pulls off a few impressive kills with her bow but there are just too many of them.

A scream rolls across the spearman line and all of them simultaneously direct their spears forward and synchronously charge your position. Your shield deflects several spears upwards allowing you to get behind their lines and turn the whoop ass grinder back to full. This allows Matilda to jump directly into the ranks of the archers and start slaughtering them.

And exactly at this moment the shit touched the fan blades because hounds collided into the fray. Luckily you are already neck deep in enemy line and the spearmen were already literally throwing themselves into the grinder and you were holding. There is physically limited amount of monsters that can pile in at a time.

Your companion wasn't so lucky. The archer mutants were scattering from her position while still spraying her with barbed bones while the hounds are swarming her. Understanding that she can't hold she screams that she is sorry and jolts into the air switching completely to the flight and trying to get out of the effective range of the archers. As she does they immediately switch to you. Fuck.

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>>2858355
"Oh nonono, don't cheat or I will call the waves early, young lady. Do you really think you are the only one who can fly?" Large beasts turn their attention at her and start spraying the sky with barbed shards. The articulated orifices on their backs acting as anti air turrets of sorts.

Simultaneously several dozens of large black winged creatures take off from the Hive. "I've heard people in Morrowind really didn't like things like that. I decided to tinker with the design a little. Enjoy" After these words you can hear mad cackling as the beasts engage your airborne ally. Yep... they can spit bone shards from their mouths like shotguns. Great. Cup Bearer eats several barrages and face plans into the ground from 20 stories up in an empty spot on the battlefield. She looks wounded and has trouble forcing herself back up but she is alive.

You fail to block a projectile and it takes your helmet off, your armor gets covered in hundreds of various cuts but it is still holding and your shield now looks like a hedgehog. However you are running out of pikemen to kill, which is nice.

"Time for a sudden wave! Only one more remaining before the BOSS BATTLE!" mad goddess booms as literally everything on the field get aggroed on you. Large creatures the size of bears now join into the fight. They end up too huge to chop apart and force you to "swim" through the enemies to dodge their mighty sword swings. Six story tall beasts regularly strafe your area with acid blobs and bone shards which are as big as you. Unfortunately most of the friendly fire they do is already thoroughly chopped. You can't hold like that! You need to use reserves!

>Break out the explosives. This should help to thin out the lines
>Break out THE explosive. It should get you untangled enough to rush and get rid of the goddamn archers
>Break out the telekinesis. Screw secrecy, you want to turn these things into chunky salsa
>Call for retreat. You might be able to break out of the encirclement
>Other?

>>2858363
>Taunt: Wave based Boss Battles were always the sign of an overconfident, incompetent 'mastermind' type Boss, who always ended up FAILING to live up to the hype! Your trope is bad and you should feel bad!

>>2858363
>Break out the explosives. This should help to thin out the lines

>>2858419
>>2858386
I feel like there is a weird delay between votes at 8 am. Luckily I am way too caffenated to go to sleep so the show must go on. I will prolong the vote for 20 more minutes for people who were late for some reason.

>>2858363

>>2858386
+1
>Break out THE explosive. It should get you untangled enough to rush and get rid of the goddamn archers
If shit gets really dire or the cup bearer is about to die.
>Break out the telekinesis. Screw secrecy, you want to turn these things into chunky salsa
Revealing ourselves by saving a cup bearer is arguably the least risky way to do it.

>>2858436
>>2858419
>>2858386
Ok then, writing

>>2858440
It is time to finally test your new weapons in an actual combat environment. As you are bogged down in melee you can't just fire an arrow. Thus you pull it out, arm it with telekinesis and chuck it like a stick grenade at one of the big guys. The explosion is not as big as the movies depict it. Those huge fireballs are made by blowing up petroleum. Here it blows up with a small flash and loud bang as it peppers the area with shrapnel. The shower of bronze debris immediately kills nearby infantry and heavily wounds the sword mutant.

Looks like it is working. You proceed to unload the rest of your arsenal at the most annoying opponents. Aka the archers. These critters try to float away from the grenades but they don't get far enough and get annihilated. The lack of archers allows you to concentrate on chopping your way through the enemies faster. You even manage to kill a few swordsmen by slowly bleeding them to death through hundreds of wounds.

You get to the point you can even afford yourself some breathing space which you proceed to use by mocking your opponent: "Wave based Boss Battles were always the sign of an overconfident, incompetent 'mastermind' type Boss, who always ended up FAILING to live up to the hype! Your trope is bad and you should feel bad!"

All the monsters stop attacking you and break off as mad goddess theatrically sighs and exclaims: "You know, I am not doing it for your entertainment. I can easily restore these losses in a couple weeks and no mortal has escaped alive. What happens if I just walk out and face you directly. Do you really think you can win? What do you think you are? I've been in the business for hundreds of years! You woke up months ago. And yes, I know about your little secret. You really did that scout's head in with a tree trunk. After it kept beating the shit out of you for most of the fight. What, you expected tentacles to be used... differently?" She chuckles and then continues.

"I rule millions of souls, I can shape the bodies of my subjects as easily as you could shape plasticine. I am immortal and all powerful! All you do is play sims with a small village of peasants who can't even help themselves! I have EARNED a right to be a goddess. Have you? Oh, right, you don't want that title. What, you think it is unethical to rise up above creatures that are barely above apes? Or you don't want the miss Mary Sue in the Pantheon to find out? Or are you scared of your own power?"

>>2858510
The monsters start popping one after another melting into the same organic solution that composes the floor of the crater leaving nothing behind. Now only Cup Bearer and you are left as an orifice opens in the structure and the mastermind behind the whole bullshit shows up. She is almost two heads taller than you and you can't shake off the feeling that she was at least inspired by the Queen of Blades. Her hair consists of prehensile tentacles and her skin has strange pinkish color and similar texture to the character. However she lacks the weird bone wings and instead of having organic armor she uses chitin plates on her arms and legs to mimic high heel boots and gloves. The rest of her body is covered by crimson silk dress with a cut on the side.

"You know what?" she says "You have two choices right now. You could pick up that girl and run. I would then test how much you are willing to sacrifice for the village. I will send increasingly larger waves of monsters and we can see if you can out- build me. Or you can try to fight me. Let's see how mighty newbie goddess after training really hard for a couple months beats up someone with centuries of experience. In other words it won't happen and I will kick your shit in. After than I will make sure to level your precious village to the ground and then salt the earth so no one can ever live there. If you leave it to its fate I would just destroy any town you would stay in. How does that sound?"

>Flee
>Fight
>Other?

>>2858513
Wow what a pause. I guess you guys went to sleep and I should wrap up. Please vote so I have a way to start off the thread on next Saturday.
_________________________
And we are officially done with this week's thread of SGQ. Next week we shall continue where we stopped. As usual tell me what you think of the session and feel free to ask questions and discuss the quest

>>2858557
thanks for running


Guys, this vote is tricky as hell, she obviously WANT us to leave, she only presented good things with the leave option.
but she doesn't seem to be a heavy hitter, hse is a bod modder but she didn't present any subspace or telekinetic skills. She will turn into a horrible monster and try to kill us.

I think she is at her weakest now, she said she can replace those losses in weeks, but she can't do it to help her right now. She wants us to leave so she can rebuild her strength. I don't know if we are strong enough to kill her but I think that right now she is the most vulnerable, what do you guys think?


I want to ask her a few questions regardless of what we decide

"why are you doing this? if these people are barely better than animals to you why do you botter tormenting them? why pull the legs of ants? did you just get bored and are trying to get the other gods to fight you, so they can maybe kill you and end this shit?"

>>2858513
I just had a thought we already know she's a biomodder and can control minions directly. Is there any reason for us to believe we're actually looking at her main body.?
Personally if I was her I'd actually make my body as hard to destroy as possible probably spreading it out/making it look unlike a traditional body while using a humanoid 'limb'as a decoy.
Tldr: What if she's actually the big organic structure and not the 'queen of blades'

>>2858513
>Fight
>I'm playing a different game than you, sweet-cheeks, and I don't need some self-absorbed fuckmuffin making a constant nuisance of herself slowing me down.

>>2858662
We probably aren't. Or, if we are, we're dealing with an 'Archdemon' effect (first thing that came to mind). Basically, if she's killed she'll just reappear in the nearest body she controls.

>>2858610
This person at least has biosculpting AND telepathic powers. Latter was powerful enough to force its way through your mental blocks. It is possible that like you she is using only some of her powers to keep the rest in reserve. And she can just be lying and bluffing, yes. Also this question is viable and I guess I will answer to it IC:

"Considering how much you build I thought you were a girl with brains. So let's think together. I gave you plenty of clues. First of all why do you think am I inside a crater? Are there enough things here for "millions of souls", considering those tentacle blobs outside mostly don't have any? It means I arrived here.

Now, why would me, a sole goddess, arrive in a territory with four warring nations? Especially when there are at least twelve gods in Cenophila, ten in Valistrat, two in Holy Nation and five in Ethea? As well as numerous of those Angels, Cup Bearers, superpowered servants of any kind as well as many unknown factors like that huge dragon thing which could destroy one of those nations in days if it doesn't get immediately shot down by the pantheons. There are limits to how powerful an individual deity can get so strength in numbers for pantheons is paramount to growth. The only way to force individual deities to join or to overpower them.

Am I just mad? Or do I know that there is literally no chance for any of them of harming me? Or maybe that I managed to get strong enough to fight them all combined? Or maybe the thing you are talking to is just a puppet and I am testing their resolve? Who knows, I am not telling you.

And about the humans, do you ask a squirrel's permission to cut down its tree and pave over the area to build a house? Do you care if the squirrel survives? Do you shoot the squirrel to get its fur and meat? I think that it is much more ethical compared to letting it slowly starve in a cut down forest. The squirrel is about as dumb as humans are compared to you. If you have all the mental augmentations and training that is. And I do get bored. You had a splendid fight down here. Shame that the type of plant used to make popcorn is extinct."

>>2858513

Whatever she is we have to get the pantheon on this, we must take Matilda out of here so she can gather the other gods, I guess our charade is over.
We will have to defend our city, we should send word to our monster hunter friends that we will need help defending.

" Again, if you droped here from somewhere it still doesn't make sense why you would do something like this. Paved the way to what? To what is coming, are you a herald to an invasion? And if you are, why would you let me leave?"


There arent milions of souls in the crater, she is preparing the terrain for the arrival of something. If we can kill her maybe we can slow their progress but I think she is a servant to something bigger, maybe she is infected as well

>>2858972
Of course! She wants us to go back hole up in our village because she is buying time! There is something coming, something worse than her, its the only reason she would have to simply let us walk, she wants us to run around gatter people, protect our village all the while she waits for whatever is to come. Her enemy wave game is a way to make us waste time, just like those games did back in the day!

>>2859014
>>2858610
You can call her bluff, but how sure are you that she's bluffing?

>>2861394
I don't think she is bluffing when she says she can fuck us up, I think she can. But I still believe she would rather not take the risk and let us go to keep us busy while she waits for those millions or whatever it is to come. It's a fucking tower defense, she wants us to get distracted by her real life version of Candy Crush while something huge draws closer.

>>2861394
Meta wise the fact the qms asking/saying this probably means tentacle bitch can fuck us up real quick, and as much of a fan of 'geek the mage' as i am and how much i want to fight her, losing that fight would be quest over

IC-wise I really want to fuck this bitch up

>>2861433
Yeah, I got that vibe too, like when the DM asks you "do you really want to do that?" on a tabletop

what bothers me is that no mather what we choose I feel like we play into her hand, if we flee she builds strength and continues with her plan whatever it is, if we fight she fucks us up and kills us and continues with her plan albeit a little wounded from our fight.

>>2861433
I am not a fan of not truly earned party kills. You are currently risking semi permanent damage, wounds and death of followers, additional threats to Farsalos and nearby settlements, the loss of your secret and similar stuff. Agatha might die only in case of extremely reckless behavior and to beings which outclass her by more than an order of magnitude. I warn about those things IC.

Just FYI secret is not yet out of the window. Mad Goddess is telepathically transmitting into Agatha's head and Muse can't hear it.

In other words act as you think is right. OOC information doesn't really matter that much. Everything is designed with things to earn and things to lose.

>>2861451
To be fair this would be the riskiest decision yet. It is possible to win it in several different ways though.

i wanna call her bluff because if she was all powerful she would have shown that in her "true form" as a show of force. What im thinking is that this place is an outpost of sorts. The crater and the fact that she has only taken over the town she landed on and the fort that fell supports this.

Now, a being with such powers will eventually get overconfident, specially after hundreds of years of playing the same "game" and more importantly if a relative newbie comes to challenge her. So there might be a decent chance of beating her, but on the other hand, any competent biomancer won't have a central core; we'd have to destroy all the organic matter or at least destabilize it enough to that the biomancer loses the connection to it (supposing this is a probe). So far, i don't think we have an easy way to kill her, other than ripping her. BUT if this is her real true form, we might be way out of our edge, so i really don't know.

I'mtoo very worried about both options, on one hand I don't think we can beat her, on the other hand I don't want to leave her to her own devices growing stronger while we hole up. both options are bad in my opinion so I propose the following for you guys to evaluate and pick holes on

We send Matilda to our city and to the big city nearby to recruit monster hunters to defend both towns, while we stay here and don't engage the goddess but harass the hell out of her, I imagine we can be quicker than her with our telekinesis so we keep our distance from her attack form and raise hell on all auxiliary and tentacle forms on the area, damaging her army and spread capabilities while Matilda goes on to inform the pantheon of what's happening

>>2861841
>>2861858
Personally I am in agreement.


I think it is important to consider that, based off the tech level of the known nations (steel is rare, etc) as well as the fact they just had a war, any attempts to rely on them for reinforcements may prove useless at least in terms of saving our village.

At worst we'd be waiting for months for the nations to agree to redeploying the bulk of their forces which is what would be needed to win this fight given how even the most basic creatures this pod person has would certainly be a risk to a common soldier and as we have seen, can take down enhanced individuals under the right circumstances.


If we run, we must abandon our current goal of a quiet life and of slow, precise and safe technological advance. Simple fact is without massive amounts of explosives, overwhelming numbers or the immediate support of the pantheon we may well lose if this person has the level of forces it threatens.

However if we strike immediately there is a chance we can eliminate this threat before it can reinforce it's current position with more creatures that most certainly are charging to it's aid. Consider that if we run, it can develop counters to our abilities and more easily eliminate us next time. If nothing else, we must attempt to strike down as much as possible as we retreat.

>>2861928
I think that the most prominent problem right now is that we don't have a reliable way of killing her. We could use the gravity bomb, but i'm not sure how it works or if we could be capable of creating a force big enough to crush her. We also don't have any napalm or a similar method to help us, unless Matilda can launch fire.

>>2861950
I just lost a massive post I had with a detailed explanation essentially:


1) She says her current losses can be replaced in weeks.

2) This is a extremely long time given how much she is talking herself up.

3) If she really is capable of infecting things like this, is capable of producing the parasites on even a rudimentarily efficient level and started as long ago as she claimed, she should've wiped the entire region clean of infectable life long ago.

E,g if we assume each parasite can breed another two parasites (fairly low estimate given their small size compared to hosts and their designed nature) and that they can do this within 24 hours of infecting their host, we reach the fact that in 21 days, starting with a single infected you get 4,194,303 infected.

Although I will admit the assumption that they can always find a new host to infect is a large one but to be fair given they are organised by a human or higher level collective intelligence it ain't unrealistic.

>>2862000
That is the main reason that i want to call on her bullshit; her math is just wrong, but i'm still unsure that we can fight her on a 1v1 and win; after all, in those 100 years she surely must have picked up some fighting moves, unless she spent most of her time on the back lines.

>>2862310
She's a gene-editor who couldn't seemingly come up with a damn original idea of her own. I mean literally everything we've seen thus far just seems like generic zerg stuff.


Personally I think we can take her in a 1-on-1 fight. Simple fact is all we've seen thus far is basic-bitch conventional attacks. The most impressive thing we've seen is acid and ranged bone shards.

If she had any psi abilities like TK or Space manipulation, given we've never had any problems based off of range, she'd have used them the moment she considered us a threat.

I consider it quite likely we can win this. If we are smart and take advantage of the enemies own strengths. For example, if we use TK, we could rip apart the acid-launchers and spray everything with their product which is seemingly very effective. Only risks I can think of is her deciding to just dogpile us or if she just carpet bombs the area we're in with acid until we're a puddle of mush.

>>2862340
There is only one problem with that and that is that she has psionic powers and that power was high enough to bypass our defenses when we fought her gestalt. IF we are going to fight her, we need to disrupt her concentration so she can't use it, or in a worst case scenario use matilda as a puppet.

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>>2862000
It would be the case if she was the only thing like that around. Exponential growth might not be desirable or maintainable. She definitely is around the area only recently. Else she would have a MUCH bigger impact over the years. Here are a few points that may or may not be true:

1) Complexity- seeking monsters are a thing. It might be the case that population- seekers are a thing too. There might be creatures outright stronger than the deities so she can pick a fight with them but not with the creatures. If she is not avoiding them they might be her expansion dampener. Or it was not desirable for her to expand exponentially for some reason like limitations of amount of shit she can directly control or something. Or maybe her home area was shit for sustaining life like being glassed to bedrock so she had to build up for all that time? Or maybe locals there are much more advanced and she can't fight with zombies against constant torrent of machine guns, flamethrowers and nukes. Or, you know, she could be lying about numbers which can stretch both ways. She might command much smaller or much bigger population.

2) Restoration of the army in weeks could be true if she loses it outside her immediate "creeped up" area. She did just melt all of them. Why did she do that? Is she overconfident in her ability to wreck us without them? Or is it not a factor and she can summon them instantaneously? Or maybe she is doing an extremely risky bluff to make us over think it? Or she might be limited by material throughput to build new units and has to wait for shipments from her home or for those pulsing vines to mine up more matter. Or maybe some other weird factor like "actual devotion of subjects" or something like that required for higher grade mutations like those pikemen. After all why the hell are the monsters chanting prayers to her if she mind controls them? Is she just trying to suck her ego off herself or is there something else here?

3) She might not be here for exponential growth. Because why is she making a single point insertion instead of raining down from the sky in millions like zerg or tyrranids? Why does she need a landing spot? Does she need a landing spot even? Are there risks with massed insertion of troops across monster infested skies and oceans? Are those areas too infested to traverse? Is she here to invade or only to tickle the deities by looking like a threat? Or maybe she has another goal?

>>2862708
damn that comic, at point 3 I'm mostly convinced she is a herald for something

>>2862708
All those points are logical possibilities but if any of those are true then that generally makes her seem weaker.


Anyhow, I advise we poke this hornets nest just a little further and see how she reacts. Worst comes to worst we retreat and are in essentially the same position as before given she's offered no option for peace.

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>>2862708
Obviously something deeper is going on but what I'm not sure. I say we retreat for now and contact the fucking pantheon of all people, this may be retarded but assuming they have nukes or at least will send more cup-bearers/gods we can easily geek the nerd.
We should have a decent chance at diplomacy with them at least so maybe we could haggle out being left out of their group?
On the other hand being am official God can't be that bad, we can still have an alter ego and an alliance with them can be valuable (tech, training a chance to kill Elspeth.
But remember pic related

>>2863664
>But remember pic related
I agree. I'd plan on a fighting retreat until we have proof that there is nothing we've yet to see about to strike or at the very least that we can tackle whatever else is coming.

Then we either disengage and get help or charge back in and resume attacking.

>>2863754
harass her while matilda informs the pantheon, that way we don't engage directly and can prevent her from building strength or destroying other villages, and with Matilda gone we can go all out with our powers

>>2863776
Matilda is severely injured so we might need to protect her while she goes but aye that sounds like a good idea.

>>2863867
the problem is that it took us several days to reach this place. By the time they return, at the very least a week will have passed and one of us will be dead.

>>2863907
Potentially. It is possible we could hold out for a week of constant fighting given we don't need to sleep.

Honestly fighting for as long as we feel we safely can would be a good idea. It would reduce the number of enemies and provide additional knowledge of our foes tactics / units.

One thing our present antagonist pointed out that I agree with is that our efforts with the village are pretty odd--our methods and goals are a bit confusing. Given we could have been exploring and expanding on our godlike powers, choosing to spend our time reinventing the wheel and playing Farmville seems like an illogical choice. If we had spent all that time getting better at using super powers, we could skip more steps and help more people faster. I.E. who needs machining and casting when you can just will things into shape and melt stuff with friction-kinesis shenanigans.

That's just one perspective though. It probably is more complicated than that.

I will however say that it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that with how weak the telekinesis package is, it really doesn't seem like we could claim to be in the same league as the pantheon even if we wanted to.

Rewriting life to do virtually anything you want seems like actual godlike power.

At this point, our best bet might be to beg to be this goddess' servant. Running and hiding from someone who can blanket the world with a hive mind of psychic eyes and ears doesn't seem feasible.

Either that or we go down fighting.

>>2867227
I think it made sense for us to start improving the village.

At first we wanted to help them so they would be safe, then we did it because we wanted a place to stay, and I like having a base of operations and laboratory to tinker with new tech and with the pods we have, to put that mental upgrade to use. Now we are basicly improving and reinforcing our own house(and the village around it) so it won't fall while we are away exploring, we are not playing farmville we are preparing this place to hold without us so we can come back to our laboratory and followers intact after we leave. And Aghata is not in a point where she just treats humans like trash or play dough like the zerg woman there, she is new to this super powerful business and hasn't lost her empathy for them yet, I personally like it that way for now.

Another thing: telepathy wasn't an option at character creation as far as I can tell. Is it part of one of the other packages or was it just not a possible thing to get?

Also, there's a pretty clear indicator that the psi things have some overlap, so maybe they all can get it potentially? Either that or qm is so down on/bored with telekinesis that they threw in elements of subspace perception for free just for the hell of it.

In hindsight, this is all coming across as needlessly bitter. I'm not too fussed, personally, but I do think that this is what some people are feeling as a result of how things have gone so far and it just hasn't been said yet. People finding ways to complain that things are terrible forever due to anon's past choices is just business as usual.

However, the upsides of our choices may well exist, but they just aren't obvious right this second.

>>2867246
Another reasonable take on things. Zerg hussy's perspective isn't the only one that matters. And having lasting connections with people and the debt of a whole town isn't a super power, but it's still worth having.

>>2867227
>>2867248
I initially planned most of this to be a thing we learn IC but I think that your questions deserve the answers. Please tell me if you don't understand or don't agree with any of these things:

Mad goddess had a different point. She mainly mocks our lack of interest in ruling these people while we spend a lot of effort to help them. Why do we help the village if they are not serving you or worshiping in return. If we wanted materials we could spend a day and output more goods than entire village can do in a month. We could also easily live in secret using powers to the minimum while swimming in luxury and comfort with the same effort we put into this if we don't want to just go self imposed deity route. In other words "strong should rule the weak, you are strong so why don't you rule". She is a social Darwinist and you can't put "thanks" on a bread piece.

Higher tech is more valuable than you think. Apart of allowing villagers to live better it also opens new avenues for your own projects. Remember the flight project I have been placing in earlier threads? If we went for it we would discover that raw telekinetic flight is pretty draining even though possible after minor mental exercise. However if some parts of the flight are placed on supporting equipment energy requirement would drop massively. A planer would be "cheaper" to fly slowly while telekinetic engine aircraft would be more energy efficient for more muscled flying. However engine materials relate directly to RPM we can reach and engine built out of bronze would wear out rapidly and require more power on keeping it together from disintegrating. Aka loss of focus in flight would cause the engine to explode and destroy the aircraft. Things like that are one of the main synergies between mind aug and anything else.

>>2867329
Telekinesis package is just as powerful as all other packages. It is more generalist than some other psi augs but if applied correctly and with sufficient creativity it is outstanding. There are a lot more tools we are yet to encounter and learn. Apply exploration and creativity for maximum result. We currently are more powerful than Cup Bearers but less powerful than deities through the sheer lack of training and experience. They had decades if not centuries to polish their powers and push them to the limit. We had several months of using it for construction and sporadic monster slapping. It does train telekinesis, just not as directed as dedicated training plans and combat experience. There are various parts of it from endurance to affected mass to accuracy which are trained by different things from fighting to weight lifting to tinkering. Also remember: when pushed to the limit we can unlock some telekinetic moves we didn't know before or improve existing techniques. That is one of the things I was talking about when I said that we can gain from this fight. Even if we get absolutely demolished we will still get new psi skills. Question is the risk and cost.

I initially wanted to include telepathy package. It was supposed to be paired with mind control and related stuff and it would improve through understanding psychology of other people. The more you understand what is inside another person's head the stronger you can mindfuck them. Unfortunately after discussing it for several weeks on QST discord and in private it was decided that this ability would not sit well with players ethically and thus would probably not be chosen while needlessly cluttering already huge choice poll. IC the reason is psychological compatibility. Other people can have it as Valentina is famous for her powerful telepathy and creatures that take over minds exist but it is just not for Agatha. Synthetic Gods in general have natural resistance to it and Body aug gave us even more resistance. There are several other powers that we can't have but other pod people can. Like Apostate and her anti psychic powers and a dozen others which are spoiler.

>>2867330
I did include some elements of subspace sense. However, the actual augment would be less taxing on the mind and it would have higher resolution and not rely on "pings". It would be easier to wrap our head around too and also it would give advantages on exploring the 4th dimension for its resources and secrets. Currently if we tried to poke a hole into subspace the action would almost deplete our focus reserves and we can't direct a point of psi effect outside the 3d plane we occupy which limits our effectiveness there. We were lucky that the phage dragged us in as we might not have gotten to it otherwise. In addition it had some potent synergies with other psi powers, especially spacetime aug. But to be fair that can be said about literally any option.

Please note that you can emulate SOME things with advanced enough ability. This is thanks to the second mind augment synergy. It would just be much easier with a dedicated mod. For example you can use gravity to lob grenades but you need ammunition while energy manipulation would have fireballs much earlier and with no material requirement. Or on the other hand flying with gravity is easier and causes less collateral damage than with energy manipulation and less energy demanding than bio-morphing wings.

>>2867331
Thanks for the explanation QM, I look forward to discovering what we can do with the powers we currently have

as for our predicament with the asshole zerg, if we do the fighting retreat we should consider moving the Farsalos population to the big city while we defend against her waves of enemies and wait for the pantheon's response to the threat.

there we can protect them better and won't have to leave one of the cities unguarded, and their defenses are a lot better then what we have right now

>>2867360
The issue is that she has threatened to attack our people if we evacuate. So her force could hit Mirangi if we evac Farsalos. She did smash apart a border fortress and required the whole western border army to fight to standstill. And that is just infected animals and people, not the elite bioforms that we fought in the crater. We could endanger a lot of people by evacuating even though it is an option.

>>2867366
hmm

well, to reach the big city she would probably have to pass Farsalos, right? unless she deliberately circumvents our small town to hit the city.

I guess we will have to get Matilda out so she can call the Pantheon while we train and defend our city, maybe call our monster hunter friends to help defend it too so we don't have to deal with every single threat and can focus on the bigger ones

>>2867366
The bitch needs killing, there can't really be any compromise that ends well for us or our people.

>>2867329
Thanks for taking time to directly address my questions. I wasn't expecting an answer so this is a pleasant surprise.

My only goal was to try and say what I thought needed to be said in response to events so far.

And Agatha's actions seem fitting for someone who chiefly just wants to finally live a life free of illness and enjoy living it. So can't really complain about not min maxing.

Inventory has been updated. Featuring addition of new privately operated industries with chlorate gunpowder and explosive weapon production as well as other updates.

Preparing for the next thread

>>2870133
New thread is up! Let's do this!
>>2870413

>>2870463
Thread is archived
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2852545/