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"I...I beg your pardon?" Dorian stammers, affronted.

"Look man, just hear me out, okay?" The Neuromancer counters, raising one hand to halt any further protests from the young man across from her. "Last time we faced Alpha, we barely got out with our lives on account of her matching your speed. It was just you, me, and Sugar that time, and the *only* reason we got out alive was on account of Sugar swooping in to save our asses...thanks for that, by the way."

She gives the pale, Gluttonous Daughter beside her a thumbs' up, and Sugar doesn't even hesitate to lean over and engulf her ally's digit in her mouth before Sia yanks her hand out of reach with a small sound of irritation.

"Tactically speaking, Sia has a point." Ace intones, her metallic form towering over everyone present in November's absence, Rath's aunt currently being tended to by Tinker Tailor in an adjacent room. "No-one here is capable of matching Dorian for speed, and if we give Alpha that advantage, then we're done."

"Going into combat when you're a man down is foolish." Dorian retorts, struggling to keep an even tone.

"We've been a woman down for a little while now, dude." Rath grumbles, turning from the incensed artist back to you. "Speaking of which, are we gonna grab Julia for this thing?"

"We should first determine how best to proceed regarding the biomass our parties have compiled." Francine chimes in, gesturing to the pile of raw meat and remains in the corner of the room. "Despite the frustratingly randomized components of the generator and its best efforts to resist Gina's Neuromancer, we were able to summon and summarily put down four distinct Amalgams with Relic-based skill sets, though their specifics eluded me since I did not have access to the Arbiter's Appetite. So, how would you have us proceed, darling?"

You mull it over for a moment, weighing what's on your plate with the equally hefty amount of tactics to consider, to say nothing of the spoils of combat you've yet to consume. On the other hand, you can tell that everyone present is on edge, and while you've had some time to rest and recover from the day's events, that's not a luxury that's been afforded to the rest of your team.

>>As much as you hate to say it, Alpha can wait for the time being. Relax a bit with your allies and tell them to rest a while, and spend time with one or two of them...before you attend to more serious matters.

>>Formulate a plan with everyone present before breaking for a while, then speak privately with an ally (or allies) of your choice before you bring everyone together again to consume the remains.

>>You’d like Julia by your side, so send Dorian to retrieve her from Laoc and then catch up with a bit before you consume Magpie and the Amalgams’ remains...and maybe even craft a new Spiritus shell for one of your Dream Daughters.

>>Write-In

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

(Gentlemen, voting shall remain open for the next four hours.)

>>4168335
>Check in with Orwell. while you're sure she would tell you if Alpha was causing immediate trouble, you want a layout of her path and area. just hoe likely is it she may wander someplace you would prefer not to let her rampage through at the moment?

>Assuming you have time, tell everyone to give you a moment to think things through, and get some rest. they'll need it once you're ready.
>Send Dorian to check on Julia and the Hyenas. if possible, you'd like to ask them to spare some time to help, if they're up for it and Laoc can spare them, but you want call them away til its time to actually strike.
>Otherwise, get working on four Spiritus Shells as tricked out as everyone here can give and is willing to give to spare. if Julia comes to help, thats fine, but dont ask or corral her into coming just for this, and otherwise just talk to whoever comes your way while you think and work.

>>4168335
>Check in with Orwell. while you're sure she would tell you if Alpha was causing immediate trouble, you want a layout of her path and area. just hoe likely is it she may wander someplace you would prefer not to let her rampage through at the moment?

>Tell everyone to take a small break while you mull things over
>Send Dorian to check in on Julia and if she thinks she had enough time to herself or still needs more.
>Start working on a Spiritus Shell for Johanna Ask people to help pitch in with BIO if they are willing. Ask for Raths help to give it a 'strong design/ feeling' and touch base with your adorable redhead and how she feels.
>And lets not forget should Amara wake up and want to help let her. We couldn't stop her from doing modifications later on anyway

>>4168342
OP you forgot to link the Fan Fictions again in the starting post. And i forgot to remind you of that.

Also question about the Ravager Acidum. Did i hit the notes for a Humoral paladin ability with it or did i go way outside of what usually constitutes such an ability

>>4168335
Adding in>>4168361 (You)
>Joahannas is just the first shell to get ready. If you can get more done make more with as many bells and whistles as you can make

>>4168342
>>4168361
>fanfic doc
oh yeah, forgot to ask how you would like us to help you compile that, or if you already had an idea BHOP? or did you give up on the idea?

>>4168361
id assume regardless he has not added it as its not ready yet.

>>4168335
>>Write-In
>"I agree with Francine. Let's take a look at the meat we've got with the Appetite, see what options we have available to us, and then eat. That will give everyone the chance to catch their breath while we digest the meal, and afterwards we can make some plans around what we've got for countering Alpha's build."
>"Meanwhile, I'm going to get on the line with Orwell, ask for Alpha's current location so we can best plan where to fight her. Also, I want to ask if she knows how conceptual Alpha's target-scaling is. Would Jackie's idea to cycle small teams through count as several smaller fights or one prolonged fight with enemies adding in as we go?"

>>4168373
Actually, we also need to know of any other adaptations that Alpha might have been given to deal with us. For example, has she shown any resistance to Skintalking? Because REV VITA would knock out over four fifths of Alpha's Health in one opening move, but if West saw us do that against Yurei and has planned to counter it, then that's obviously a bust.

>>4168376
it was said she was given upgrades specifically to face all our family, so yeah, we can be very assured she can probably block things like that.

hence why our plan is really to cancel out her Relics as if we cant, probably not even worth bothering to face her. i mean, yeah, we need to stop her, but we cant do that or help anyone if we're dead.

>>4168376
>>4168379
The sniper Rifle of Magpie was still intact wasn't it........ Maybe just maybe we can see what its drawbacks are and can maybe craft some Anti Relic Ammo from it to unleash into her face during a surprise round.

Not a fan of this possibility but something me may want to consider. Especially if we can infuse a round with Raths Relic backfire ability

>>4168384
maybe. we'll have to wait til BHOP gives us the rundown of what survived though, aswell as if we can do anything with the melted husks aswell.

>>4168379
>it was said she was given upgrades specifically to face all our family, so yeah, we can be very assured she can probably block things like that.
Yeah, I'm assuming that is the case, because it's not like an Alpha with over six thousand Health wouldn't still be a super tough fight. Just thought we should check to make sure. Though if West wanted to be really nasty, she'd modify Alpha to subtract 1% Health from her max. Change it from 36560% to 36559%. Now inverting it doesn't take it down to 6563%, it raises it to 95563%.

>>4168384
That's not a bad idea. We don't need to use Alex's Mercy, necessarily, but can we make some of those anti-Class rounds for our own guns? Is there enough Daughter biomass left in Alpha to count for that sort of thing? She's got a Generating Halo, so we might manage to make anti-Generator bullets work against her.

>>4168390
nothing says we cant make our own custom rounds to take on Alpha, doesn't have to be class based.

also, we're not gonna beat Alpha by smacking her health down. i just dont see it happening, even if we swapped her down to 6000+ instead. we need to counter or relic powers, then if we can do that, rip out her core matrix thing, as hard as im sure that'll be. mind you, we know its easier than actually killing her, but still. might even just shut her down if we do. or not, but i doubt she will be anywhere near as powerful without it.

...or tampering with it will just cause her to explode on us. but i mean, again, we're not beating her in a direct fight, just not happening at our current level.

>>4168396
I'm just considering the worst-case scenario, where disabling her Relics and punching the Cores out of her chest doesn't manage to stop her and we still have to cut through thirty-six thousand Health on a rocket-cyborg. Oh god, this is going to be such a nightmare fight. And we thought Magpie was bad.

Though actually, how much Health did Magpie have? Mara's false body had five figures, so it could be that Magpie's true body was in the same range? Maybe we can put out enough damage to kill Alpha straight-up, in the worst-case scenario.

>>4168404
yeah, and im saying if it gets to that point, we'll probably just have to back off.

as for Magpie, unsure. id actually very much not be surprised though if she had significantly less health, due ot her build simply not being built around taking hits at all. sure, she was high level, but in reality that could easily leave a very big stat difference depending on what she actually built up.

>>4168404
>>4168396
We do have Novembers Autumn Protocol that can deal ludicrous amounts of Damage. Maybe we can make rounds that reduce WAlphas Heat resistance? maybe even knock off her immunity to it?

Otherwise yeah backing off is gonna have to be the priority. But she will be a lot less dangerous then afterwards so we can at least push her onto the backburner

>>4168408
didnt we have some way to make Novembers attacks Radiant only, or just change their damage type? do that and it'll work just dandy, i dont think even our new info was showing Alpha had Radiant resistance. i mean, she could have it i guess, but as far as im aware we have not seen she does.

>>4168405
Yeah, but if we back off then we're right back to where we started, being chased by a killer rocket-cyborg that we have no way of stopping. God, I don't want that. Just let me pretend for a minute that we can kill her this fight and have it be over with.

And I was accounting for the fact that Magpie probably is significantly less buff than Mara, that's why I was comparing Mara's false body to Magpie's true. I guess she could be really not buff, though.

>>4168411
We have no information on how Alpha's immunities and resistances have been altered. She's probably plugged that hole in her defenses, just to be extra annoying. But if she hasn't, then yes, Amara can turn all a target's attacks to Radiant damage. If Alpha is still vulnerable to it, then buffing everyone with a GRA OMA NUKA THA at the start of the fight is a good idea.

>>4168411
>>4168408
>>4168405
>>4168404
If I'm reading this right, then the Fight against West Alpha would be best fought in a series of 1v1 dueling matches as West Alpha scales her strength and adaptations to the opponent(s) she tries to face. The problem with this method is that when we go for a switch/tag-in that's when Alpha will gain a boost in power.

>>4168413
well i mean, if the Anti-Relic abilities dont work, or even are just subpar in effectiveness, then we already just dont stand a chance, especially with her being so geared towards us. but you were saying if we get past that and get out her cores and shes still a powerhouse. but sure, it would suck to back down, but if we got that far we can probably at least assure she doesn't get her cores back, and have probably thus super crippled her threat level. she might still be too high level for us at the moment, but the bar would still undoubtedly have been lowered significantly for when we try again.

it IS possible to make good and permanent progress but still not be able to finish something in one go afterall.

as for November, Amaras was not how i meant we could do that. swear we had another way, that would actually change it, over just stacking Radiant on top of it like Amaras does, which wouldn't actually fix the problem. stacking another damage type on top still leaves her getting hit with something she can react to with immunity or absorption triggers, so would still make hitting her with such attacks a bad idea.

>>4168417
yeah, no. thats a terrible idea. no one, at all, could face West Alpha on their own. she only scales certain aspects to how many she faces. sure, powerful aspects, but still only certain ones. the issue your plan is ignoring is, she still has a baseline power level that could easily overcome anyone on their own.

>>4168335
>Have everyone take a break while you check on Orwell for level-ups and Karma to upgrade the Contender, and get to work on crafting Spirit Shells for your dreamdaughters.

>>4168417
If we were all Mara or hell even Magpie Level powerful... Maybe we could pull something like that off but right now no one could do that... Maybe Julia if she got a boost like the one that finished off Yureis first form

>>4168420
>>4168335
lets not do this. we planned to upgrade the Contender after the level-ups, so we could choose her less mallable upgrades based off any gaps left in the level-up process, or better mesh with it.

>>4168417
1v1 is not a good move even if we could do the switch efficiently, she's still massively more powerful than any of our party members. Thirty-six thousand Health, six ACTs, a huge arsenal of Relics that she can generate on the fly, and rocket punches. No way is anyone facing that solo.

>>4168418
I would accept a retreat if we timeskip past us regrouping and go immediately into round two against a crippled Alpha with our party having recovered during the skipped time. I want her dead by the end of this Vein.

>>4168426
well, I wouldn't. thats silly. i hate her too but getting ourselves killed isnt going to do anyone any good. if she proves too tough she proves too tough. we come back later. we backed off from facing Kosi for awhile too without a time skip.

plus, it would horribly mess with the flow of the quest and even the point of backing off, which is to give us time to rethink and plan things. not to mention the world doesn't stop for us. a time skip would leave way too much to just dice rolls we're ignoring, as no way if we have to back off all we're taking is a five minute breather.

>>4168419
Oh high excel sheet anon. This is archive anon.
>>4168426
>>4168422
You're right all, what I suggested is a terrible Idea. Still what I said still has some merit. If we are to break this fight down into skirmishes of constantly rotating teams, our best bet will be to have Alpha adopt the barest baseline adaptations while leaving herself vulnerable to unexpected events like a sudden switch.

Let me run this idea by you because I have one in the works and I'm not sure if we can pull it off. It's super risky and sounds VERY STUPID but this idea is still in it's "probably could work from creativity phase" if you could pardon the sheer riskiness and just try to play along with my perspective.

So here's what I'm proposing. We have Alpha prioritize Shu and have Shu act as a taunt tank. Everyone else can rotate in and out as they so please. Even though Shu's got the lowest Health pool of everyone in the family, she's got the Highest Bio pool out of all of them which means she has the highest armor. So while Alpha's main baseline will be Shu (the one constant), She'll be vulnerable to unexpected elements (i.e. everyone else) and will have a hard time adapting to them as we constantly rotate them.

The problem that I'm having with these fights is that arranging a massive battle where teams constantly rotate in and out of engaging Alpha will inevitably lead to a clusterfuck. Shu's the best person at keeping all the ducks in a line,

And I've noticed that over many fights that our allies tend to go down first before we tend to sit in the back on a massive health regen surplus due to dominus bloodline despite having very viable defensive melee.

>>4168430
We can recover to full pretty fast, so long as nobody gets sent to Death's Door. We've got more than enough healing abilities in the party to manage that. So we just have to avoid anyone getting knocked out and we can make the timeskip be only a couple minutes. We burn through resources to hit her hard and fast to cripple her, retreat to refill, and then go right back to fight a weakened Alpha.

>>4168438
Oh, Alpha will almost certainly prioritize Shu anyway, because everyone does. I don't think we'll have to work to make that happen. Having Shu draw aggro while the rest of the teams rotate around Alpha isn't a terrible idea, though. We should raise Shu's Health considerably this next level-up, get her Magpie's Core and triple-hybrid gun skill and junk them both for stats, that would at least make her break 2000%.

>>4168442
>Magpie's innate Gun skill

You know, that just gave me an idea when we eat Magpie's core and gun skill. Lets have Shu spawn arms that hold each of magpie's guns and use them as we please. Currently Alpha's spec'd to counter just the Contender, but she'll have a hard time keeping up if we constantly rotate fire-arms.

>>4168439
yeah, no, i disagree. you're forgetting mental fatigue, and the simple fact if things force us to back off, we simply are clearly not prepared to finish her off now. it would take much much more than just recovering our stats to be prepared to face her again if it goes that poorly. again, we simply cant brute force this fight, and if trying to go at it logically as we are already wont work, then just throwing ourselves into the ringer for a second spiff wont either. its silly as hell.

just stop ignoring the reality this may end up a Kosi situation, where we just are not yet prepared for the moment to actually finish things off here.

>>4168438
im unsure. i see what you're going for, but might just not Work. Shu might just need the breathing room of leaving herself, and the problem is a constant just puts Shu in too much danger. honestly, the Teams themselves will probably need to be random, so Alpha cannot start being prepared for each team. but Shu staying in the fight could force certain elements to be more necessary per team to accommodate the fact Shu will always be there and thus always need help in certain ways, aswell as Shu will then make certain counters always there, significantly lowering many peoples ability to be a surprise counter.

Having Shu always there basically means no one else can rely on their hive Mistress Powers at any point, for example. while rotating her out aswell could at least make those viable at times for others, and Shu too, if we force Alpha to mix things up enough.

>>4168438
Then Shu will need a diverse set of defenses to keep WAlpha off her toes while we rotate people in and out.

Also one thing Dorian can not be allowed to intervene in this fight under any circumstances. With his speed WAlpha will turn everyone into mush in a round or two.

And we will nee dot fit everyone with Custom Ammo to target specific parts of WAlpha. Probably one anti relic ammo. One anti generator and one anti fibromancy i think she also got a lot of.

>>4168442
We will see if any of Magpies abilities will be of any use against the killer Cyborg.... but yeah they will probably be just stats.....

>>4168447
We first need to see which drawbacks those guns have before we can consider using them.

>>4168442
>>4168447
as i always say, lets not jump the gun here, and wait til we see whats actually available for the level-up, whenever that happens.

even stat wise Magpie may not be the best for Shu, or may end up meshing well replacing something on someone else. and i mean... not like this time we have her Dream Daughter to worry about who it goes into...

>>4168452
>>4168447
>>4168442
Dorian wont like it, but there is a good role he can play in this battle; ferrying people to and from the battle. yes, he cannot be allowed to get close enough to be counted as a combatant, but neither can anyone else for this to work. to make this run smoothly and them get in in time, he may be necessary to ferry people around to switch up both whos on whos team, and where they come in from, in ways we otherwise couldn't do quickly enough. aswell as the fact the battle probably wont stay in one location, so people will have to be a decent bit further than just the actual combat bubble away to keep out of it, so him sling shotting them in or at least closer to it will save alot of time.

>>4168447
I remember proposing that we completely respec our skills, give Alpha the entirely wrong set of counters, but ultimately we decided that it would put us at as much of a disadvantage due to not knowing our skillset as thoroughly after the respec.

>>4168449
Alpha is already worse than a Kosi scenario. Kosi was a time-sensitive thing to consider, but she wasn't actively hounding us across the Fleshscape, forcing us to play an entirely defensive and reactionary style while we desperately search for something that can end her. We could actually advance meaningfully in the quest instead of spending our entire time glancing over our back worried that West Alpha would strike while we were distracted. I would love for Alpha to become a Kosi scenario, where we can just leave it and go off on adventures, secure in the knowledge that nothing bad is going to happen while we're gone. But if we cripple Alpha that severely, there's no reason not to just kill her then.

>>4168457
Not a bad idea.

>>4168449
>>4168453
>>4168452
This West Alpha situation will probably be a Kosi scenario where we will have to back off. And come back for a second round.

Which reminds me.
>>4168335
>As much as you hate to say it, Alpha can wait for the time being. Relax a bit with your allies and tell them to rest a while, and spend time with one or two of them...before you attend to more serious matters.
>Consult with Orwell for the exact details of how West Alpha adapts as well as the established baseline, her current location and her predicted flight path. And ask if it's safe to reclaim (but not fully move back in) the Dragon's Roost or if Alpha isn't hanging around that place like a squatter.

>>4168466
>respec our skills
part of that was it simply would be a nightmare game wise and mechanically too.

and its not at all that simple. because if we get that far and have to back off in the first place, no, there is every reason in the book not to try and kill her again if we fail the first time, because, we just failed to kill her. it means even in that weakened state, we did not have enough to bring her down. backing off wont change that.

and its not about what we want. if Alpha turns out to be something we're not ready to deal with, thats that. we just have to deal with it and work around it til we are and can finish her off later. it would be utterly stupid to keep pressing her if theres clear signs we are not ready, just like how we didn't just bull rush her the first time. it would suck, but all what you're proposing would get people needlessly killed and result in yet another, worse failure.

unlike Kosi, we're talking about someone custom made to kill us and made to stand up to the like of people like Mara. our potential tricks are the only reason this might even be slightly viable. if those fail or dont do enough, then we simply are not ready to face her, simple as that.

>>4168438
oh, and forgot to say hi back, sorry.

>>4168468
i dont think we should be thinking about reclaim the dragons roost. until Alpha is gone, its simply always going to be too high a liability.

>>4168466
>>4168457
If we're going to at least aim to Cripple, why not go for a super long range bombardment like Railgun sniping in an attempt to act least disable one of West Alpha's Cores? Take the time to craft a bullet capable of piercing through her defenses and dealing super heavy piercing damage.

Which reminds me of vid related:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQlVYpp2EPQ

Video description tl;dr: A heavy bio-mass loaded Bullet with innate piercing damage that's capable of bypassing piercing resistance that when buried in the target, soon explodes into piercing swords of calcite erupting out of the target's body.

We could go for something like Vid related, except modify the bullet in a way that it stays stuck inside West Alpha's body, permanently crippling that core.

>>4168475
We will have to make plans for our Alpha Strike/ Surprise round anyway so keep that in mind that is not a bad idea.

>>4168475
first, we need to know if Novembers guns can take custom rounds.
second, im not against it for an opening, but i just cant see her not having some way to defend from ranged enough to get up close, so we would need beo be ready for when she does, which would result in the typical plan.

again, as an opener it could work, but i dont think its a good idea to rely on only long ranged fighting nor the idea it will continue to work long enough to win off of. plus, we need someone close enough to ensure both her Relics can be countered, and her cores are actually knocked out, and if knocked out, taken away from her before she can get them back.

>>4168472
A foe being something we're not ready to deal with has never stopped us before. Not when there are more important things that mean that it's end them or suffer terrible consequences. It's the same scenario, we'll kill Alpha because leaving her alive is too awful to deal with.

>>4168475
I did suggest that a couple Veins back, actually. Hook November up to Shu and Amara via the Dominus Bloodline, give her a total of twelve ACTs to work with, and she can fire six railgun rounds in a single turn. Do it from over the horizon, using a swarmling as a spotter, and have it be MRSI (Multiple Round Simultaneous Impact, shooting the earlier shells in a salvo at higher angles so they have longer flight times and therefore hit at the same time as the later rounds) so that they all hit before Alpha can respond. Then we teleport to a new spot and fire another salvo from there. Soften Alpha up with a couple of barrages, then engage her.

>>4168482
That's why we engage her from over the horizon. In the time it would take Alpha to retaliate, we'll already have teleported out.

>>4168482
you got that gdoc to our theorycrafted relics? I need you to pull it up as I might have a few things in that doc that we could make as novelty debuffs.
>>4168490
>>4168477

True. But I think we're going to have to take our time here in this preparation phase of hunting down West Alpha.

I understand your people's haste in wanting to kill Alpha asap and have her be done with it, but overconfidence and hastiness is a slow and insidious killer.

Right now, I just want people to come up with creative ways to weaken West Alpha in one-off novel ways that leaves her with no room to adapt to after they're used. Like consumable relic. It doesn't have to be a big one, it could be consumable relics that throws debuffs on West Alpha over time.

>>4168490
not really, and this is without a doubt on a different scale than other times. plus, any other threat has had an actual goal, West Alpha is so far just a mindless force of nature you can possibly stop. its bad to let her go, but at worse she tries to hound us, something we have already been dealing with. at best, she just flails around randomly, which is bad, but compared to past problems nowhere near as actually bad.

and again, getting us all killed wont help the situation. getting our team mangled and cut down wont do anything helpful. she needs to be dealt with, but she is not something we should, or can, or need to, stupidly brute force ourselves against. my god Anon seriously fucking hell.

>hit her from the horizon.
yeah, may not be possible where she is, and could very well backfire. if shes under fire, she will be under some form of being in combat. on top of, all that would do is make her shift towards things to make sure she can actually close that distance, or worse, escape. relying on any barrage being able to last without something distracting her in close combat past a turn is ignoring literally everything we know about how she works.

>>4168493
the only one being mind boggingly stupid in their hastiness to kill her now is >>4168490
this anon.

as for the sheet, here ya go. im a bit surprised you didnt have it saved, but no issue or problem at all if you have your reasons.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b_-8s0tin7DCQxITm6C69QULRnM_ibDfg18iV4dc7Fc/edit?usp=sharing

>>4168497
added to my drive. thanks.

>>4168498
its public editing mind you, as the point was to have people archive their own relics over any one person having to try and remember to do so.

(Good Morning, all. It's been a doozy on my end, so I'm just now getting to questions.)

>>4168361
(The fan fiction compilation isn't done yet, so that's why I didn't add it yet. Regarding the Ravager Acidum, you did well, and I feel like it suits a Humoral skillset well.)

>>4168372
(I would like some assistance compiling that if the anons here would be so kind, since I feel like I'd miss something.)

>>4168493
(For the sake of space, the Google doc for Player-Crafted Relics in at the top of the Relics Ver 6 Pastebin.)

>>4168505
(Testing this again, since I can see my name when I'm typing up a post, but it's now showing up when it hits the thread.

>>4168505
Ah alright so the other anon was right.

So how can we help? My own works are all centralized in one place should we go back and just gather them together wherever they may have shown up?

>>4168505
think you forgot your Trip BHOP... or wait, damnit. can you place it? i know due to the April 1st joke, many boards have that feature disabled. otherwise, sorry to hear about your day.

>Threaysheet in Relics sheet.
oh, well thanks for adding that to the Relics sheet. makes things easier.

as for the Fan-Works, i'll compile a list of mine for you to then use as you please. if no one else is up for it, ill try and haggle what i can remember and find together, but everyone giving you a link you can then organize as you please would probably work best, over one person trying to scrounge it all together.

unless of course, they want to, are willing to, or already have, of course.

>>4168490
>>4168497
Some consumable relics that I think we could make for West Alpha.

>RHINOVIRAL POWDER (Consumable): A bag or jar filled with Sickly mucus colored powdery pentagonal flakes. To use effectively, throw the powder at the “face” or the appropriate equivalent of your enemy daughter/amalgam/construct’s respiratory system. Upon inhalation or exposure to the relic powder, the unfortunate victim will experience the onset of the common cold for 10 rounds. Additionally during combat the unfortunate victim will have a low but increasing chance to waste one ACT on their turn entirely spent on dealing with the symptoms. Purging this disease takes up the victim's entire turn for one round. Even in the onset of the Crucible, mankind’s most common sickness persists. Bless you. (tl;dr: The powder causes the victim to have a small but increasing chance to have their intended action interrupted and wasted due to the symptoms of the common cold over 10 rounds as a relic that disrupts the enemy's Action economy over a period of time.)

>HOMEBOUND FEMUR (consumable): A Human bone bleached and fragile. It smells of pain, nostalgia, and recovery. To activate this relic, the daughter can simply break the bone as a free action. In doing so the bone teleports the user back to the spot where they last slept in the fleshscape. However, this also breaks the daughter’s “legs” and halves their mobility for one day or until their next resting period (still applies to daughters who are amorphous or lack legs, the Relic WILL cut down their mobility somehow by breaking a limb). Coming home in such short notice can be a pain one’s feet, so make sure you rest up before your next adventure.

Homebound Femur would provide all combatants an escape rope to dip out of combat without getting traced back to our new home base which is something I think everyone should have on their person if we are to fight against West Alpha. As for Rhinoviral Powder, it's not consistent, but the increasing chances and the very long debuff duration would help tip the scales ever so slightly.

hmm...... weird.... its not showing up for me either... I didnt notice on the last post.... but now its pretty clear that its missing

>>4168494
>not really, and this is without a doubt on a different scale than other times. plus, any other threat has had an actual goal, West Alpha is so far just a mindless force of nature you can possibly stop. its bad to let her go, but at worse she tries to hound us, something we have already been dealing with. at best, she just flails around randomly, which is bad, but compared to past problems nowhere near as actually bad.
You're right, this is without a doubt on a different scale than other times. Alpha is so much worse than all of our other big threats that we pushed beyond our limits to kill. None of them were persistent threats that would prevent us from actually playing the damn game, Alpha is. She has to be ended so we can get on with the quest. Every Vein she's alive is a Vein where we have to deal with her bullshit instead of any of the other thousand threats we have to deal with.

>and again, getting us all killed wont help the situation. getting our team mangled and cut down wont do anything helpful. she needs to be dealt with, but she is not something we should, or can, or need to, stupidly brute force ourselves against. my god Anon seriously fucking hell.
I explicitly said not to do it if we get anyone put on Death's Door. We're just doing this if we can manage to hit her hard with an initial strike that cripples her, then retreat to recover for the next round with her severely weakened.

>yeah, may not be possible where she is, and could very well backfire. if shes under fire, she will be under some form of being in combat. on top of, all that would do is make her shift towards things to make sure she can actually close that distance, or worse, escape. relying on any barrage being able to last without something distracting her in close combat past a turn is ignoring literally everything we know about how she works.
It's MRSI. The barrage doesn't last, it hits all at once. She gets hit by six railgun shells at the same time and then has to run dozens of kilometers in a single turn in order to catch us before we teleport out. It's a good move.

>>4168508
I believe it has to do with April Fool's.

>>4168508
>>4168517
damn, yeah. think they just disabled it here too. hrm. well, theres the April Fools joke on our game, i guess. thank goodness you always put () around things, and typically have a distinct writing style i guess?

>>4168509
(When I pause for the evening later today, Ill request that everyone post links to their works, and then I'll compile those into a Pastebin that I'll add to subsequent Veins.)

>>4168517
>>4168518
(Ah, oh well. Hopefully it'll get fixed in time.)

>>4168509
I found this one I still had open on my phone made by some other anon

https://pastebin.com/wJu88nYi

>>4168516
Homebound Femur sounds good. I'm not sure that Rhinoviral Powder will do anything, though, for all we know Alpha doesn't even breathe anymore. We haven't actually gotten a description of her, BHOP is holding back on that one for a dramatic reveal. But she might be so cyberneticized she can't inhale.

>>4168518
>It's MRSI. The barrage doesn't last, it hits all at once. She gets hit by six railgun shells at the same time and then has to run dozens of kilometers in a single turn in order to catch us before we teleport out. It's a good move.
It's a good idea on paper, but I would like to remind you that bhop has confirmed that West Alpha travels the fleshscape by flying al la Iron Man. for an MRSI to work, we would have to use lots of math and planning to ensure that they all hit Alpha simultaneously in the air no less.

>>4168527
Ah, damn, you're right. I forgot about the jet mode. We'd have to get her when she lands, that's less reliable as something we can do. Well, fuck that idea, then.

>>4168518
>She has to be ended so we can get on with the quest
not at the cost of losing the game itself, or a family member. and yes, every Vein she is alive if we fail, we will have to take her into account. its what it is, but trying to push past her if everything fails is not at all a solution either, nor is a time-skip that regardless of size, breaks the flow, structure, and feel of the game a better solution. if we didnt do a time-skip for Alamath, we damn well arent doing on here. and if Alpha forces us back, she forces us back. we deal with it, in the time we need, over foolishly rushing in. if after both pushing past both her Relics and her Cores she still forces us back, or worse, one or the other cannot work, we simply wont be beating her now. simple as that. and trying to push her now if we fail that hard will simply result in us not being around to ever beat her.

>I explicitly said not to do it if we get anyone put on Death's Door.
yes, and i explicitly have said multiple times if she can withstand all those steps we do and is still a massive threat to the point we have to back off, we arent suddenly going to be able to beat her in a second round.

>Barrage
and i damn fucking well never said it was a bad idea or not to do it, only not based the entire plan on it and rely on it working and West Alpha not being able to adapt to even the playing field or beat it. im saying we damn well better be prepared to face her in melee, because she still will almost certainly force us to no matter how far away we try to be, and certain aspect may require us to be ready for melee regardless.

>>4168521
will do. and also means i will need to work on that, assuming this conversation ever ends.

though, if the level up votes are tonight(unsure when you plan to do them), it would be a very bad time to try and mix that into.

>>4168516
sorry, the other anons running me ragged here.

>Powder
Alpha might be too machine for that.

>Femur
i guess thats alright. horrible drawback though and if Alpha somehow tracks us, we're fucked.

>>4168532
yes but if she does manage to track us down we are fucked sideways either way.

>>4168531
(Odds are that the level-up vote will come tomorrow evening, given that I'm still hammering out the level-up list, so it won't happen tonight, for sure.)

>>4168531
>not at the cost of losing the game itself, or a family member.
Agree to disagree. The risk is not that high.

>if we didnt do a time-skip for Alamath, we damn well arent doing on here.
No, that's right. You know what we did at Almath? We crippled the enemy, healed really quick, and then got back in the fight. Just like I'm proposing we do now. The time-skip is just glossing over the five minutes that it would take for us to do it, in order to preserve the flow of the game.

>>4168536
not necessarily. we would still stand a chance of getting everyone safely moved again. everyone having broken legs and halved movement would very much significantly drop that chance. i mena, its low anyways, but we would still want to keep that as high as possible id imagine.

>>4168538
thats fine, both with me schedule wise and with me understanding. just wanted to make sure is all.

oh, would you prefer i lay out the individual stories, or if its something like the Pepperbox Gang where all the story links are at the bottom of their page, you alright or prefer to just have me link that and maybe mention said story links are there? either is fine, honest, just want to know what you would prefer, not what you think would be easier for me/us.

>>4168542
(Individual stories wold be fine, if that works for you as well.)

>>4168532
>>4168528
>>4168522
I'm getting the feeling that the majority of this vein will be spent doing lots prepwork on taking down Alpha. From Karma level ups to Relic Crafting, to Consume level ups... If so, we should dedicate the time in this vein solely to downtime, prep-work, catching up on friends and family, and taking a much needed breather.

>>4168335
So some housekeeping that I think needs some attention:

>Level up (obvious)
>Karma level up (obvious)
>Asking Tinker Tailor about November's repairs
>Asking Tinker Tailor about the upgrades she made to November's Tank
>Asking Tinker Tailor about her work on the Void Orrey
>Catching up with family.
>Forging relics, repairing relics.
>Catching up on current events.
>Catching up with Orwell on the details of the last skirmish and comparing the number of combatants in each of West Alpha's skirmishes. The devil is in the details and West Prime and West Alpha are such devils that we need to look out for in said details.
>Asking Orwell on how the fuck Alpha managed to sniff out the location to the Dragon's Roost.

speaking of tracking us down...how the fuck did West Alpha figure out our home base? We don't really physically enter/exit the penthouse and mainly travel to and from the penthouse via Escher's gear.

>>4168540
>The risk is not that high.
if she survives to the point of us needing to back off shes still such an overwhelming threat, yes, yes it fucking damn well is.

>We crippled the enemy, healed really quick, and then got back in the fight. Just like I'm proposing we do now.
no, BHOP re-evaluated some things and said he was gonna bowl through regardless, not giving us a choice. and context was still significantly different, what you're proposing now is ludicrously unnecessary and fucking retarded. im not letting you turn this into another damn Alamath situation.

>The time-skip is just glossing over the five minutes that it would take for us to do it, in order to preserve the flow of the game.
big damn fucking assumptions about how much time, and still would be breaking the flow and feel of the game.

>>4168542
I would probably prepare at least two different fallback positions with the gear so that when we do fall back using the bones we can move out immediately if she would manage to find our new base.

>>4168545
So giving you the links to the individual stories?

Even those that have multiple chapters. Can do that if you want to sure even with a descriptor and all.

I might also then add a link to the pastebin in my own nexus once that is completed.

>>4168548
Na we did come in physically. people have come and gone repeatedly. And if you know roughly where to search even a mountain is no longer that big of a place. Shu has never done it any other way than with the gear btu Magpie that slime girl and i think at one point Julia as well as a couple other people from our family

>>4168545
works fine for me sure.

>>4168548
probably, though that will depend on how much time Alpha actually gives us too. certainly agree we dont go at her willy nilly though yes. only thing i can think i disagree on is catching up with people, albeit in that i dont think we have the luxury of doing that by itself. maybe if it can be mixed into other tasks though sure. also dont think the Void Orrey is too important right now. Current Events again probably bested mixed into other things. important but i feel like anything more important than Alpha would either make itself obvious or be brought to our attention. lord please let nothing else pop up during this...

>speaking of tracking us down...how the fuck did West Alpha figure out our home base? We don't really physically enter/exit the penthouse and mainly travel to and from the penthouse via Escher's gear.
we use the waystation in the town it overlooks semi-frequently, and its not at all protected from prying eyes and abilities. neither is the town. combine that with West probably already keeping tabs and trying to track down important places to Mara, and she probably was able to start piercing things together id imagine.

that, or a friend/ally blabbed. possibly not even on purpose or knowing they did.

>>4168557
oh yeah, we're gonna make sure we can get outta dodge real fast if things go fuckside upside-down.

>>4168548
>I'm getting the feeling that the majority of this vein will be spent doing lots prepwork on taking down Alpha. From Karma level ups to Relic Crafting, to Consume level ups... If so, we should dedicate the time in this vein solely to downtime, prep-work, catching up on friends and family, and taking a much needed breather.
Well, our party can have a breather. Shu just took one. We need to work just hard enough that the increase in our stress balances with the decrease in everyone else's, so that we're all at the same level of somewhat stressed when we're done.

>speaking of tracking us down...how the fuck did West Alpha figure out our home base? We don't really physically enter/exit the penthouse and mainly travel to and from the penthouse via Escher's gear.
I figure that West studied Skintalking-based recordings of our movements and the movements of our associates, and managed to put together the likely location of our base from where we emerged. So she knew that we occasionally popped up in the Town of Rust, and that the Midnight Crew headed there to meet up with us, and so deduced we probably lived in that area.

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>>4168545
oh, BHOP!
i think i just found wasp girl from Laoc!

(Writing now, Gentlemen. It's been busy, so thank you for bearing with me.)

>>4168605
(Oh, this is absolutely fantastic. Thank you!)

>>4168698
No worries, BHOP, glad as always to have you running this awesome quest. Take all the time you need!

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>>4168335

“Let me check in with Orwell before we continue, just to get an up-to-date sitrep on Alpha.” You say, and as soon as the words are out of our mouth you notice a nearby Joyous snap to attention, a glint of intelligence in the constructs two-tone eyes as it strides up to you. “So, where is she, and what is she up to?”

“Alpha’s looped back to this little town and is just flitting around, looking for something. It’s actually the same one whose church you and Rath bombed out shortly after you woke up, when you and she first met.” Orwell informs you, gesturing with her hands as she speaks, the movements clashing against Amara’s normal method of emoting. “She passed by your old dorm and one of West’s labs, too, but she didn’t stick around for long.”

“When did that group of Daughters encounter her?”

“Between West’s lab and the no-name town. Yeah, big ‘oof’ on that…they didn’t stand a chance.” The teen says, the construct she’s hijacked grimacing at the recollection. “I tried to fool-proof the warning field as best I can, but there’s only so much you can do, right? But hey, at least we got some decent info.”

“Wait, is Alpha just…retracing Shu’s steps?” Gina asks, glancing to you as the Joyous just nods.

“Looks like it. I’ve stored up enough strength to make a move to throw off your scent before she gets to the swamp, if that’s cool by you.”

“Guess this whole crisis has been a goddamned buffet to you, hasn’t it?” Rath says, judgment dripping from every syllable as she scowls at the construct.

“I’ve been trickling out info so as to not leak too much of our plans, so it’s not as much of one as you’d imagine. I promised 'em a big recap later, though.” Orwell replies, pointedly ignoring the other girl’s tone. “Still, the anticipation is more than enough to sustain me. Oh, the hype’s building up something fierce, lemme tell you.”

“Thanks for the update, Orwell – it’s nice to know that we don’t have to sweat Alpha, at least for the time being. I may tap you for another distraction, but for now…” You trail off, meeting Dorian’s single azure eye as you toss Escher’s Gear to him. “…I’d like for you to go retrieve Julia and try to enlist the aid of the Hyenas for when we’re ready to strike, but only if Laoc can spare them.”

“Rath?” You continue, nodding to Dorian as he salutes you just before space wraps around him, ferrying him to the far-off city. “I’d like for you to get started on four Spiritus shells. God knows we’ll need them, and gather what biomass everyone’s willing to spare for their creation.”

“M-me? Uh, sure…I guess.” She stutters, clearly taken aback at your request for her creative efforts. Under your orders, she collects as much biomass as her freshly summoned arms can carry, scurrying off to November’s room to be close to her Aunt while Tailor continues her work.

(Continued)

>>4168736

“Alright everyone – I took a little while to rest up, and you’ll do the same.” You declare, leaving no room in your tone for argument. “Take the time that Orwell’s given us and relax while you can. That goes for you all, too.”

Your words prompt an appreciative look from the leaders of the Crew and Barbers respectively, and at that the assembly of Daughters take up residence on the seats that Gina summons from the surrounding flesh with an amethyst-infused glance.

“Y’know, it’s cool seeing you work up-close.”

Surprised, you turn to your left end look down at meet a Joyous’ eyes, the one currently inhabited by the consciousness of a teen in some far-off, undisclosed location.

“Is that so?”

“Yep! Like, it’s common knowledge about how you fight and stuff, but seeing you take control in the little quiet moments really hammers home how you’ve come this far.” She nods, glancing around the room and your friends and family. “They’ve got all these different things that’d make them so ill-suited to work together under any other circumstances, or hell, any other leadership…and yet it just *works*. These people are so different, but you glue them together. None of them would be here if it weren’t for you.”

“If it wasn’t for them, neither would I.” You counter honestly, keeping your gaze on the short construct beside you. “The only reason I’ve made it this far is because of them.”

“Kind of a chicken-and-the-egg scenario then, isn’t it?” The Skintalker muses, steepling her fingers under her chin thoughtfully. “They’re alive ‘cause of you, you’re alive ‘cause of them – like a symbiosis.”

“Or, you know…’friendship’. Which is what most people call it.” You add, eyebrow cocked as Orwell erupts into giggles.

“Pfhaha, yeah, you got a point.” She chuckles, planting her hands on her hips as you regard the girl next to you. She’s an odd one for certain, and while you can’t deny that she didn’t exactly get off to the right foot going by first impressions, you can’t deny that her assistance has been a lifesaver…figuratively and literally, in several cases.

While the others are relaxing, by extension you have some time on your hands. As for how you spend it…that’s up to you.

>>Ask Orwell something else, while you have her here…in a manner of speaking.

>>Check in on Tinker Tailor and November, and see what sort of modifications the former’s cooked up for your resident cyborg and her beloved Metall Geschoss.

>>Take a moment to reach out to the Hexane lovers, Thelis and Veilen, to make sure they’re doing all right given everything that’s transpired.

>>While they relax, sit down with [an ally of your choice]

>>Write-In

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

>>4168746
>Tell Orwell under what criteria she should definitely call you back before you
>"If you find anything about Alpha that has changed to cover one of her weaknesses or what she is doing Get back to me yeah. And when you have to spring that psychic lure to pull her off our trail. Also if she gets near Sam... She might mistake her for me "

>>Check in on Tinker Tailor and November, and see what sort of modifications the former’s cooked up for your resident cyborg and her beloved Metall Geschoss.
>If they seem busy go and cant afford the distraction sit down with Rath to touch base and go over the Spiritus Shell designs with her for each person.

Did your Internet break OP

>>4168746
wait, BHOP, thought Shu had to help with the spritius shells? last time with Julia think thats what you said...

regardless i guess;
>assuming you have time before you need to help Rath with the Spiritus...
>Check in on Tinker Tailor and November, and see what sort of modifications the former’s cooked up for your resident cyborg and her beloved Metall Geschoss.

>>4168746
>"I'm worried to ask, but just "How much" information about me is out there for the public to see? I want to know because if everything about me is completely public, then that'll just put me and my family in more danger. And we both know it'll just get worse in the future as my family and I get stronger. I'll have more hunters sharpening their fangs, claws, and blades and going after me with the intent of getting my head. It's why West Alpha seemed to be engineered to counter my family."

>Can you bring up all the records of each combat encounter that involved Alpha against groups of daughters? I want to compare and contrast the performances they had fighting against Alpha in comparison to size.

(Gentlemen, voting shall remain open for the next four hours from now. Apparently someone in my phone's IP has spammed 4chan, so I wasn't able to reply.)

>>4168804
Well at least it's not our phone that died or the internet.

>>4168804
oof, yeah thats happened to me before. even worse, had an odd glitch with that where i had to update my phone to stop that issue from happening everywhere once.

>>4168808
Urgh that sounds just terrible.....

I already hate it when i have to take care of a ban when my phones not glitched.... And it happens so much... well little i can do when my phone usually switches between twenty different networks a day

>>4168736
Huh. She's retracting Shu's steps. Well, I guess that means that she's switched out her targeting from Francine to us, so using Shu to draw aggro in the fight should work well. I wonder why she's starting from the beginning, though? Maybe some sort of data-mining/curiosity thing, she can't find us where we're supposed to be so she's going to check everywhere we've been and figure out where we'd chose to be now from what she learns.

>>4168854
I think she's trying to learn more about us.

Didn't Sugar hint that West Alpha had a built in emotion suppressor? It's been mentioned that West Alpha clearly could feel emotions, but she couldn't express them openly unless that one forge core of hers was disabled.

I think she's trying to retrace Shu's path and journey so she could try and experience how we felt (emotionally) since we woke up.

The emotions that she missed. The emotions that she clearly craves to feel and express. And knowing that Shu could express her emotions through an empathy field, I think she's trying to learn more about the emotional side.

>>4168871
Could be. I'm hesitant to assume such an innocent motivation to the horrible killer cyborg, but she might be looking to understand us not to better kill us but out of genuine interest. We are responsible for the biggest change in her existence, I can see her wanting to learn more about us to better come to terms with that change. I still worry that she's going to want to kill us, though. She's such a risk that coming to her trying to communicate peacefully isn't something we can really chance.

>>4168878
>>4168871
We could leave a phone for her lying on the ground and call her form a distant waystation......

Though i am not sure it is a good idea. She could be using it to lure us into a trap. maybe with Wests control slipping she has regained some cunning and planning ability

>>4168881
From what Francine told us about pre-cyborg Alpha, I'd think it would be the opposite, that she'd be less able to plan ahead without Prime to guide her. Though maybe there's a brutal cunning to her. I still think it's too much of a risk to try to reach out to her, though. It might leave a path open to taking her out more easily once her Cores are disabled, though, since that apparently damages the emotional inhibition. Manage to talk her down, stop struggling, be open to having her dreamstate consumed so that she can learn to come to terms with her strange new feelings in a safe environment. Or maybe that's wishful thinking, and she'll fight to the end.

>>4168881
>>4168878
Well when you think about it, West Alpha has always fought daughters in self-defense unless under strict orders by West Prime.

Only when West Alpha was confronted by Daughters assuming a hostile intent to kill does she go all out, but she never reacts to an ambush, she never intentionally targets other daughters of her own volition. It's only when following West Prime's orders does she go for the initiative, but even then when she had to take West Tau back for recalibration, she told Tau to go in quietly and used violence when things came to a head.

>>4168897
Yeah probably just wishful thinking.

She might turn into a feral daughter pretty much the moment the inhibition is dropped because of all the feelings that will flood her mind suddenly.

I just had a thought...... Our Empathic field... could we use it as a weapon to overwhelm her once we removed the suppressors?

>>4168881
>>4168897
Well, West Alpha is gunning for Shu anyways, so we might as well take the time to try and talk things out with her if she's willing to talk before it turns to violence.

Another thing that I've noticed is that when West Alpha encounters scenarios, she adjusts accordingly. If her target responds with words (i.e. West Tau) West Alpha also responds with words. If her target responds with violence, West Alpha will also respond with violence.

>>4168910
West Alpha's emotions was already under a giant pressure cooker waiting to explode due to a Forge core module, trying to overwhelm her with emotions might be nice in combat, but a non violent solution might be nice.

I have a feeling what West Alpha is seeking from Shu is simply a way to be understood by others due to the Forge Core emotion suppressor module installed on her person.

Remember, when we destroyed the West Network we gave each proxy is given a chance to learn and grow onto their own. West Alpha was part of the network and was no different than Francine or Sigma.

>>4168746
>>Check in on Tinker Tailor and November, and see what sort of modifications the former’s cooked up for your resident cyborg and her beloved Metall Geschoss.

Are we Blaster Master now?

>>4168907
Yeah, but Francine said that was because she was being restricted, and in her natural state Alpha was much more violent. Then again, what is Alpha's "natural state" now? She's spent a while with her brain full of cybernetics, her personality could have shifted.

>>4168897
Here's the hole in your argument that I'm seeing. Francine may have said that Alpha was emotionless when she encountered her older Proxy, but that may be at a time when Alpha already had the emotion suppressor installed and it was also when Alpha and the others were still hooked onto the West Network.

>>4168935
Can I get a sourced quote?

>>4168935
that reference has long since been revealed several veins ago.

>>4168941
From Vein 34:

>My neurodivergence from Prime is just evidence of a failed experiment. Maybe Prime didn't scoop out all that this girl was, or maybe she just didn't pour enough of herself into the empty mold. There's no telling where West ends and the mistake begins. Alpha came out broken, too. No curiosity, no will, just...nothing. Blank and cruel, like an errant child.

Francine encountered Alpha when she was still fresh, apparently. She wasn't interested in talking, then. Like I said, it's possible that's changed over the past year or so of having cybernetics influencing her thinking.

>>4168953
Yeah, but I want to be more overtly Blaster Master. Let the tank jump, that would be sick. No, I don't know when it would at all be useful, but it would be cool.

>>4168958
If we can make the tank jump we might be able to make its climb and even participate in combat with claws or shit like that. Pretty much turn it into a hermit crab that can shoot..... Maybe we can crossbreed it with a mantis shrimp for extra short range effectiveness.

>>4168955
The thing that I'm unsure of is that Francine's testimony didn't say the time difference between her creation and Alpha's creation, nor did it state the order in which the Proxies were created.

>>4168983
They were created at the same time, according to Orwell's data file on Alpha.

I should head to bed now
Good Night Anons

Good Night OP

I am really looking forward to seeing what will happen next

>>4169008
Good night, anon. Sleep well.

>>4169008
(Sleep well, Anon.)

>>4168995
(This is correct.)

>>4168995
>>4169010
Well then, Talk about Cain & Able, They're twins!

pokes head in

sup im back need to catch up again

also since the things broken for today this is gen. i just saw the thread up so was like ima stop in

>>4169030
Hi, welcome back. Nice to see you.

i actually seriously tend to disapear a lot and then pop in for a bit binge read and then vanish again

>>4169030
>>4169035
(Gen! It's good to see you back, I was wondering the other day what you were up to.)

>>4169042
really. im actually running my own quest right now so I've been keeping busy XD

and working on arts stuff. so hows this quest been going since the last time I've been around. i mean in general i dont need a recap i can just read through the threads

>>4169035
How long has it been since your last binge? Almath? Yurei? Laoc?

>>4169049
(I'd say it's been going well. I've been having a great deal of fun with it, at least.)

>>4169050
i think its been 10 threads give or take 2-3

its like i cant actually remember if it was like 33 or 27 or somewhere in between XD

which tells me i should really keep up with this quest more often

>>4169057
>>4169063
Do you remember anything to do with giant ants? Because that plot thread is delightful, you're going to enjoy it when you get there if you haven't already. In general the quest has been going well, we've been encountering a lot of cool stuff. Right now we're kind of stuck playing defensive against our current threat, it's got me a bit testy, but I'm still looking forward to the fight where we take them out.

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>>4168746

"I'm worried to ask, but just how much information about me is out there for the public to see?" You posit, and Orwell's subsequent cringe tells you all you need to know. "Listen - if everything about me is completely public then that'll just put me and my family in more danger, and we both know it'll just get worse in the future as my family and I get stronger. I'll have more hunters sharpening their fangs, claws, and blades and going after me with the intent of getting my head. It's why West Alpha seemed to be engineered to counter my family, since she knew exactly how to calibrate Alpha to be effective against us."

"True...honestly, ever since you first fought Mara at the Envious City, you've had eyes on you. Your fights, your talks...everything's been compiled and archived." Orwell replies, gazing up at you with eyes that don't belong to her. "Really only your interactions with me or those you've had inside the Dragon's Roost have been out of the spotlight...and speaking as someone that's gotten used to the one-way mirror of media? It sucks, especially if you didn't ask for it."

"Agreed...though it may work to our advantage just as much as it's worked for West." You say with a sigh. "Can you bring up all the records of each combat encounter that involved Alpha against groups of daughters? I want to compare and contrast the performances they had fighting against Alpha in comparison to size."

"Sure, I'll work on rummaging through the archives for stuff Prime didn't scrub. Anything else you want me to keep an eye out for?"

"That, and if you find anything about Alpha that has changed to cover one of her weaknesses or what she is doing, then get back to me, yeah. Also, if you have to spring that psychic lure to pull her off our trail." You say, quickly adding once it occurs to you; "Oh, and one last thing... if she gets near Sam, then she might mistake her for me."

The Joyous gives you two thumbs-up before the twinkle in her eye fades, Orwell's consciousness retreating from the construct and leaving it an empty shell of the little girl that's sleeping in the next room over. At her departure, your feet carry you to a door on the opposite side of the room, and you open the door to see Rath crafting the general shells of the Spiritus quartet you commissioned, the vague forms of your Dream Daughters coming together nicely before your hand guides the final product. A gentle wave from the left of the room catches your eye, and you turn to see November greeting you, though in a way you never expected.

(Continued)

>>4169303

The metal plates that make up the older woman's torso are splayed open, the intricacies of her inner workings laid bare as servos whir and gears tick away in time with her arrhythmic heartbeat. What truly takes you by surprise, however, is the biomass that pulses at the very core of her otherwise metallic chest; a heart that beats, a spine that twitches in the open air, and a myriad of neurons stretched between them and the mechanisms that make up the form she chose to take.

"Yo." She says simply, with Tinker Tailor striding over from the corner of the room with a strange contraption in her slight hands, a thing that is more meat than metal, at least compared to November's opened hull. "Don't mind all this, I'm about back to rights thanks to Tailor, here."

"Notroubletrulymypleasuremypleasureindeed." The Artisan quickly states, gingerly slotting in the device in a ready-made niche within what you'd guess would be November's navel, if she were sealed. "ShuIhavetothankyoufortheRelicsyouretrieved. Thebrokenoneswilltakesometimetorepairbutyou'vebroughtmeawonderfulhaultoexamine."

"Gogogo, seeforyourself." She urges you, gesturing rapidly to the table she came from, tucked into a corner of the room.

>>GUNSLINGER’S LONGCOAT: A custom-made coat with an impressively dense weave, this neuron-lined outwear offers two levels of resistance to all elemental damage types when worn. Doubling as both fashion statement and solid all-round defense, this Relic ensures that the bearer will tackle horror in style. (Chest Slot: HEALTH +300%. November gains 2 Levels of resistance to ALL damage types when the longcoat is worn, as opposed to purely elemental.)

>>PARANOID PENDANT: The red, bloodshot eye at the center of this organic pendant darts its gaze to and fro, its suspicious attention ceaselessly roving over its surroundings. When worn, the bearer's chance to evade attacks increases by 20%, and any successful evasion immediately allows the user to swiftly counter-attack, their retaliatory strike boosted by 1/4 the damage that would have been inflicted by the evaded blow. (Any Slot: HEALTH +80%. The Chance to evade increases to 25%, with the retaliatory strike's damage being boosted by 1/3 of the missed strike's power, instead.)

>>ARBITER’S JUDGEMENT: One of Mara's select masterpieces, this Relic resembles a perfect pearl, its impossibly white sheen unblemished despite the wear and tear it should have suffered. Mara's Relic allows the user to act first in combat, along with any allies that occupy the same combat zone. What sets this Relic apart from imitators is the fact that this Relic's effects ignore any enemy effect that would serve to interrupt this item's activation, though allied abilities that proc off early initiative *do* activate. (INELIGIBLE FOR NOVEMBER'S FRAME DUE TO FORGE-CRAFTED BODY - WEST COUNTERMEASURES IN EFFECT)

(Continued)

File: TINKER TAILOR.jpg (126 KB, 568x800)

126 KB JPG

>>4169305

"Impressive..." You murmur, running your hands over the surface of the perfectly round sphere, finding that is possesses a surprising weight when you test it in your palm. "...thanks for restoring these, Tailor. And what of the guns?"

"Alex'sMercyisundamagedthoughIhaveyettofinishmyworkontheothers.TheHungerpenaltyissomethingI'mtryingtofindawayaroundsoI'llneedsometime." She replies, sealing November's shell back as all of the older woman's disparate plates snap back into place, and she resembles the form you've grown accustomed to...plus some modifications. Her entire design's been optimized, her sleeker exterior no doubt having increased her overall speed while the subtle curvature of her frame offers greater protection against incoming attacks.

"Andifyouthinkthisisfun,thenyou'lllovewhatI'vedonewiththeGeschoss." Tailor hums, turning to you as she wrings her hands excitedly.

>>NOVEMBER: HEALTH +500%, DEF+, SPD+. November may now fire pre-constructed elemental rounds, crafted at a Forge.

>>METALL GESCHOSS: The Geschoss may now take advantage of its new thrusters, granting it considerable vertical and horizontal movement at rapid speed. When tethered to the tank, November now receives an additional ACT. What's more, the Metall Geschoss now rolls into combat with two of November's weapons spawned on its shell, and November may fire them as a free action when she attacks with the Geschoss.

"Damn, I feel like a new woman." November says, rising from her seat on the cot as she admires her improved form. "Also, what was that last bit? That cube-thing?"

"Thatwasthebestpart!" Tinker Tailor exclaims breathlessly, the vacuous glasses of her mask shimmering in the glow of Rath's luminous arms only a short distance away. "It'sanintuitiveevolutiondrivethatallowsyouto'levelup'afewofyourweaponssystems, drasticallyincreasingtheircapabilitiesbyusingapoolofspecially-culturedbiomassasapre-paidlevelingcost!"

"...Paid by whom, exactly?" You ask, eyebrow cocked.

"Meofcourse." Tailor dismisses, watching intently as November generates her Porcupine in one hand, its form tremulous, the metal shuddering as Tailor's creation prepares to optimize a selection of the woman's armaments. November catches your eye, shrugging as Rath darts to your side, admiring her Aunt's ungraded form and practically vibrating in time with the weapon the other woman wields.

"Well, you two, I've got a couple of ideas as for what to boost...but I'd like some advice, if you're willing to chip in your two cents' worth."

.She doesn't have to ask you twice...and where Rath's concerned, she didn't need to ask at all.

>>PLEASE CHOOSE *THREE* OF NOVEMBER'S WEAPONS SYSTEMS TO ENHANCE

Character Sheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12N7NB6N8_CmjJJPUDMjijBBqSBNdvoYBc1um01TbXs0/edit?usp=sharing

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

(Gentlemen, I shall be pausing here for the evening. Voting shall remain open for the next fourteen hours, with posting to resume in approximately sixteen, give or take as work demands. I'll be around and writing for the rest of the evening, and I'll be happy to address any questions, comments, or criticisms, as I welcome them all. Have a great evening and take care, one and all.)

>>4169309
huh, wasn't expecting any of this for November. as far as sheets go folks, ill update hers once this votings done.

speaking of, vote;
>PORCUPINE
>REX
>KAISER FLARE

>>4169311
thanks for running.
also, you still want us to link you the fanworks stuff, or plans change?

>>4169330
(That'd be great!)

>>4169327
(Yeah, Relic optimization is Tailor's specialty, so that extends fairly well into tinkering with November and the tank.)

>>4169309
>>4169311
So any luck with the Void Orrey?

>Autumn Protocol
>Porcupine
>Nova Lung/Flare step

>>4169305
>>GUNSLINGER’S LONGCOAT
>>PARANOID PENDANT
I'm tempted to put these on Shu for the upcoming fight. Might not be the best symbolically if it looks like we're carrying on Magpie's mantle after killing her to stop her doing bad things, but they'd give Shu a lot more survivability and if she's going to draw Alpha's aggro she'll need it.

>>ARBITER’S JUDGEMENT
Oh, very nice. Free surprise round, that's great. Very good addition to our overall capabilities, the Arbiter Relics are way OP. I hope we get a look at the rest in the line, that would be really coo-
>(INELIGIBLE FOR NOVEMBER'S FRAME DUE TO FORGE-CRAFTED BODY - WEST COUNTERMEASURES IN EFFECT)
Wait, what? West countermeasures in effect? Is this something to do with Alpha, like the Arbiter Relics were designed after Mara's fight with Alpha and she wanted to make sure that Alpha wouldn't copy any of her designs?

>>4169309
>>NOVEMBER: HEALTH +500%, DEF+, SPD+. November may now fire pre-constructed elemental rounds, crafted at a Forge.
We should craft a few belt magazines of each element type, use them with her gunpod.

>>METALL GESCHOSS:
Hover tank, nice.

>>4169335
(That bit deserves its own post, but yes - she's completed its repairs.)

>>4169342
(All of the Arbiter Relics are crafted to be unusable for artificial Daughters.)

>>4169335
personally i think Rex is a better bet. Autumn drains a core and its unlikely that will be whats fixed here. its also still alot harder to setup regardless.

Rex gives her an upgrade to a hard hitting option that doesn't rely on lugging around extra cores or draining them to use. much more milage out of that. also, we plan to need Rex soon, so upgrading it would be a very good idea.

just while im at it, even though we agree, Porcupine is basically her main gun she can use at any level, so upgrading it would be the most ideal. an Kaiser Flare has simply always done us supurb, so i think giving her stun more oomph could make a big difference in alot of fights.

>>4169347
>incompatibility due to design
Ouch.

>What truly takes you by surprise, however, is the biomass that pulses at the very core of her otherwise metallic chest; a heart that beats, a spine that twitches in the open air, and a myriad of neurons stretched between them and the mechanisms that make up the form she chose to take.

This reminds me. I have yet to design a T-5 relic that would serve as a blackbox coffin capable of letting November survive the WinterFall initiative. Either that or a Pilot's ejection pod.

>>4169349
The issue is that the REX railgun is available only when November has a T-5 Core installed. Meanwhile the Autumn Protocol is available at any core level.

>>4169311
>>4169332
here ya go. please, tell me if theres any changes you need to it, even if you are more or less just swiping the info up;
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1comL20X2jUrPO0p7QMdFinwAwdXHre2F9A5bdXif7_k/edit?usp=sharing

>>4169332
>Relic Optimization
thats fair and i expected something, just not so much. made it sound like earlier for balance/other reasons November was at her limits she would be at for the rest of the game, once we got her new frame.

>>4169347
oh? Artificial Daughters? not just West Related Daughters?

>>4169352
wait... thought you did? or was that another Anon? because i know someone made something akin to that, i could've sworn.

>>4169361
>wait... thought you did? or was that another Anon? because i know someone made something akin to that, i could've sworn.
I had one in the works, but shelved it because I didn't know the exact criteria for a T-5 Relic and was uncertain if it would work. That's why it wasn't in the Relics Theorycrafting doc.

>>4169347
I got that, I'm just wondering why. It's a strange function to have as a specific countermeasure to West. Maybe West makes much more use of cybernetics than we thought.

>>4169349
Sounds sensible to me. We should equip those two guns to the Geschoss, too. Rex as the main cannon, Porcupine as a coaxial mount.

>>4169356
But we only lose access to the Rex if we use the Autumn Protocol and have to go down to a weaker Forge Core. So we'd get more use out of an enhanced Rex than an enhanced Protocol.

>>4169356
yeah, but that hardly matters when any use of Autumn makes her fully coreless. and she will have the T-5 in her most of the time anyways. she still will be able to do us significantly better with Rex at more times than she will with Autumn. and again, its ignoring we're about to have a fight we need that Rex to be a powerful as it can get for. its wholly worth the sacrifice of her needing a T-5 Core for Rex, for her to even the odds even a fraction more here for us against Alpha, especially without having to use an all or nothing move like Autumn that would leave her weakened and be too big a waste if she missed, which is likely.

>>4169369
(You're on the right track, yes.)

>>4169369
oh, me or you may be mis-reading that.
i think the two guns the Geshoss can take in on TOP of her base Cannon, not replacing it. so she gets the two new guns, plus her free Geschoss cannon shot or her free amped up usage of a weapon system through the Geschoss now.

>>4169347
BHOP can say if im wrong there though, of course.

>>4169369
>>4169379
If West managed to jailbreak a Forge Core capable of crafting wetware compatible cybernetics with human technology, then West Prime would have been able to access the source code to Relic Technology. Given that West Prime and her other proxies have the tendency to install Conduit selves into the relics they create, it would make sense for Mara and Magpie to have anti-West countermeasures installed to prevent remote hacking/hijacking when interacting with any Relic Technologies developed by the Wests. Otherwise, West could easily hack into any Relic she so desires and take control of the entire system al la Liquid Snake in MGS4

>>4169372
The Autumn Protocol would actually be counterproductive in this fight. Alpha absorbs heat damage. The Rex has the advantage than it ignores damage immunity, so it can actually hurt Alpha. We're going to need to craft Radiant damage bullets for all of November's other guns, but I'm not sure if that works for the Autumn Protocol given that it's fed directly from her Forge Core.

>>4169381
>oh, me or you may be mis-reading that.
I think it's me. I actually assumed your interpretation as well, I just was hedging my bets in case it wasn't as good as I hoped.

>>4169379
Lovely. I'm going to guess that Prime herself has enough cybernetics in her for the Arbiter Relics to be incompatible, something to do with stabilizing her degeneration. Because there wouldn't be much point to making something like the Arbiter's Appetite not function for the cyborg Proxies if they could take it back for Prime to use. She's who it would benefit.

>>4169381
(The guns are in addition to her cannon, yes.)

>>4169422
Neat. We could triple-fire the railgun, then. One from November, one from channeling through the Geschoss' main gun, one from the slotted railgun copy. I think that would actually be a good opening move, try to punch out three of Alpha's four Forge Cores.

>>4169309
Oh, and since I forgot to actually vote

>>PLEASE CHOOSE *THREE* OF NOVEMBER'S WEAPONS SYSTEMS TO ENHANCE
>Porcupine
>Rex
>Kaiser Flare

>>4169422
awesome.
oh, and how is Marco reacting to his new Guardians Heart, and November to the oddities him having it causes?
or, actually, has that happened yet? or did we basically just technically see it finish up, due to how to tether a Guardians Heart to an owner?

>>4169433
im still unsure we can hope to do that so easily at all, but yeah, if nothing else getting some more railgun stakes through her before this becomes a tag-team brawl match will do wonders. or so we hope. not sure how i'll react if the shots just dont work on her, or worse, she like, snatches one from the air and throws it back just as hard.

>>4169439
>not sure how i'll react if the shots just dont work on her, or worse, she like, snatches one from the air and throws it back just as hard.
Yeah, that would be pretty horrible. I guess we could neuromancy stun her, first? There was nothing on her sheet about being immune to neuromancy. On the other hand, upgrades, so she might be now.

>>4169309
>>>PLEASE CHOOSE *THREE* OF NOVEMBER'S WEAPONS SYSTEMS TO ENHANCE

>>Porcupine
>>Rex
>>Kaiser Flare

>>4169309
>>4169305
Uh...... nice new toys to play with

And the tank can really jump....... I am impressed you managed that Tinker

>>4169309
>>PLEASE CHOOSE *THREE* OF NOVEMBER'S WEAPONS SYSTEMS TO ENHANCE
Gonna have to agree with the other Anons here. This is little contests
>REX
>PORCUPINE
>KAISER FLARE

>>4169332
As for Fan Works

Here is the link to my own works
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YHEpTq1YGphXNSKuIe2IsT1IEO48EbSxdHwDuILB5qo/edit?usp=sharing

It will bring you to a version of the sheet you can actually change stuff on but all other links will bring you back into my Archive version where only i can change things on. I will keep both versions up to date until further notice is given

File: November, Enhanced.jpg (127 KB, 1280x1121)

127 KB JPG

>>4169309

NOVEMBER – LEVEL UP

>>M1918 B.A.R. 'PORCUPINE': The rhythm of war, the drumbeat of victory. November's right gauntlet slides back to bring the M1918 to bear; a repurposed Browning Automatic Rifle fit to fire spontaneously generated rounds directly from November's inner Forge. Dealing steady piercing damage at medium and long range and boasting the ability to continue firing all throughout the current turn when activated, this weapon places considerable stress on November's Forge when sustained over several rounds, its cost increasing by increments of 5% each round the assault is kept up (5%, 10%, 15%, and so forth). However, keeping this assault active grants higher damage and increased critical hit chance at NO COST to accuracy, with the flaring of the Forge also granting a stacking bonus to the next use of a plasma-related ability, boosting its damage drastically if the barrage is sustained over several rounds. UPGRADE: The Porcupine’s newly installed auto-calibration module now allows continuous fire to be maintained at no cost to November’s accuracy. What’s more, the stacking DAMAGE and CRITICAL HIT CHANCE bonus is now doubled, allowing the Porcupine to keep up more efficiently with November’s endgame weaponry. (Cost: 20%, 1 ACT)

>>KAISER FLARE [TIER 2 ABILITY]: Light, heat, then...darkness. November opens her chestplate, sending forth a burst of blinding, searing light in a LONG-range conical area in front of her, automatically blinding all foes caught within its area of effect, an ailment that lasts THREE turns. Foes caught at close range are instead blinded for FOUR turns and have their critical hit defenses hit drastically, opening them up to further assault from November or her squad mates. UPGRADE: If a foe would somehow be immune to this status ailment, they are instead blinded for ONE turn, or TWO at close range as the flare’s intense roar and heat scrambles any and all sensory systems. (Cost: 50% HEALTH, 2 ACT)

>>MODEL 90 SANDIA GAUSS RIFLE, 'REX' [TIER 5 ABILITY]: An experimental weapon, too unwieldy to be used by anyone other than the walking arsenal that is Heather Neeson. Loading a single, heavy round into this miniature railgun takes an ACT to perform, with the second ACT spent sending the projectile hurtling towards a single foe, inflicting a devastating blow that ignores any and all elemental or damage resistances IN ADDITION to IGNORING damage mitigation abilities. It's no matter, though; the slug also acts as a tracker, effectively tagging the impacted foe and increasing the accuracy of subsequent shots November fires at them to 100% while also boosting the follow-up’s DAMAGE and CRTICIAL HIT CHANCE by 30%. When the target absolutely, positively needs to have a cloud of lead delivered to their door...there's no better tool for the job when judgment comes knocking. (Cost: 300% HEALTH, 2 ACT)

WEAPON DAMAGE - INCREASED

(Continued)

>>4170536

“Holy shit, this is awesome!” Rath cheers, inspecting every inch of her aunt’s recalibrated frame as you turn to Tinker Tailor once more.

“I appreciate you doing all this, Tailor. You really didn’t have t-“

Your thanks comes to a halt when you find the Void Orrery thrust into your face by the over-eager Flesh Artisan, the jet-black goggles of her mask reflecting your own bewildered expression.

“IfixeditsohardsoveryhardbutIdidit!” She exclaims, practically shoving the device into your arms...and when you touch the glossy orbs of the Orrery, you feel something in your right dress pocket practically jump, the Silver Key reacting curiously to the Relic that’s been returned to you…

>>VOID ORRERY (RESTORED): Tinker Tailor’s efforts to restore this odd device have been fruitful, restoring its unusual capabilities to full. Previously able to zoom out to view the sheer number of active Crucible’s, Tailor’s fine-tuning has allowed the Orrery to zoom in, granting you a map of your Crucible in addition to a monitoring system that allows you to run a search on any participants you’re familiar with and reveal their current location and status. What’s more is that during the restoration process, an odd link was detected between the Orrery and the Forge Cores…perhaps there’s a connection, something that could be turned into a meeting of minds across an incomprehensible gap…

“…Interesting.” You murmur, the Silver Key’s insistent thrum dying down as you place the Orrery back on the table behind Tailor before addressing her once more. “Like I was saying, you really didn’t have to do all this. If there’s anything we can do to repay you, please know I’ll be happy to make the hard work you’ve put into all this well worth your while.”

“Nononoyou’vegivenmesomanyfuntoystoplaywiththatI’vebeenrewardedseveraltimesovermyfriend.” The Flesh Artisan replies instantly, the shake of her head more a rapid snapping to-and-fro than anything natural to the human form. “Mytimewithyou’sbeenmostilluminating,andI’vemuchtoconsiderandincormporateintomyowndesigns.”

“Speaking of designs, how’re they lookin’, Shu?” Rath calls out, and you turn to see her and November standing over the rough likenesses of Holly, Uzu, Johanna, and even Isabelle…the latter of which isn’t even defaced, which you half-expected given Rath’s grudge.

“Nicely done.” You grin, the Silver Key still humming lightly against your thigh as you consider what to do next with the downtime available to you.

>>Help Rath finish the Spiritus Shells, then install your Dream Daughters as the final touch.

>>Look up a Daughter you’re curious about, just to see how the Orrery works.

>>…Just out of curiosity, bring the Void Orrery and Silver Key together, to see what happens.

>>Let Rath work on the shells a little longer, and go speak with (Write-In).

>>Write-In

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

(Gentlemen, voting shall remain open for the next three hours. In addition, I’m gunning to have the level-up vote open tonight at 7:00 or 8:00PM, Eastern time. Let me know if that works for everyone, and I hope you’re having a good day.)

>>4170540
Considering that a majority of us may be under stay-at-home orders, this is fine with me.

Also, I would like your input on this custom ammunition that I recently designed.
>Kidney Stone Shells (Customized Ammunition): The seed of a stone whose bones blossom into a flowery work of unlimited blades. This custom bullet shaped like a flowerbud behaves similarly to the Ravenous Parabellum bullet Shu's known to use. Embedding itself in its target and dealing incredible damage the longer it remains before bursting into an explosion of piercing and cutting damage. However, its namesake reveals a more terrible purpose to its design. Unlike the Parabellum bullet which leaves a hollow cavity that the target could simply heal from, the Kidney stone seed shell fills that void by rapidly growing into a stone flower of spears and blades that disrupts implanted relic augmentations and imposes a heavy blood tax on abilities that are fulled by the host's HP pool by a 20% total increase of its original cost. Heavy is the weight of such a beautiful stone flower, all will come know its terrible price.

>>4170539
>…Just out of curiosity, bring the Void Orrery and Silver Key together, to see what happens.
TIME SEE WHAT THIS DOES.

>Ask Rath to craft 5 Kidney Stone Shells (custom ammunition) as part of preparation.

>>4170539
>while she might consider it sacrilege, hand Tinker the Artisenal Appetites and have her look over the anti-relic Abilities you plan to consume, so she can give you any insight into them, their interactions with your current power-sets, and anything else of note she may be able to help with. assuming the idea alone doesn't make her want to vomit in her gas mask.
>Help Rath finish the Spiritus Shells, then install your Dream Daughters as the final touch.

im curious if Tinker Tailors expertise cant help us here, and feel like letting our DDs get used to their bodies and relx in the real could help, aswell as would help with planning once we get to it to let them be around.

>>4170547
as for the Void Orrey and Silver key, lets not test that out just yet. that sounds like something that could end up being a massive rabbit hole, something best left for when we have more free time and less over our heads, so we can explore it and anything dealing with it to its fullest, over now when time IS limited and could be cut short depending on how things go.

>>4170550
see>>4170551

i really really do not want to do something like that right now, at all. that just does not sound like at all the type of thing we need to be digging into, especially right before something we need to be fully focused on. we already know that could be connected to some pretty important and hefty stuff, and i do not want to delve into that at all right now considering the circumstances.

>>4170539
>you feel something in your right dress pocket practically jump, the Silver Key reacting curiously to the Relic that’s been returned to you
Well, I guess that's a pretty strong hint that it is Crucible Maker tech. Gonna be interesting to see what that does once we have the time. Just the map and tracking is amazing, though, I wish we had this a long time ago. Can we cross-reference our Waypoint data with it? Would be neat to know the actual positions of the places we've got coordinates for but haven't been to yet.

>>Help Rath finish the Spiritus Shells, then install your Dream Daughters as the final touch.

>>4170540
Works fine for me. And my day's alright, I suppose. How's yours been?

>>4170539
>"Lookign good Rath one second though........ I will be right with you"
>while she might consider it sacrilege, hand Tinker the Arbiters Appetites and have her look over the anti-relic Abilities you plan to consume. Assuming she is okay with that
>Help Rath finish the Spiritus Shells, then install your Dream Daughters as the final touch.


>>4170556
Yeah yeah i had changed my mind shortly after posting my first vote. This is probably a massive Rabbithole and could quite possibly lead to Shu passing out or experiencing a reset or something

>>4170540
That is fine with me.... I will need a lot of sugar to stay productive however.

>>4170540
8-9 EST would work better for me, but yeah i can be there for sure.

as for my day. not bad. need to grab lunch and do some shopping, but i mean all things considered unless the store is even worse than before, is going and wont be bad.

>>4170557
to be fair, the fact it mapped out all the crucibles and was able to go beyond just ours was pretty good indicator of that. and yeah, gonna be interesting actually being able to, well, map things out.

does though feel a bit like what we DIDNT in part want to do with FuzzzBuzzes and such though, aka, become big brother tracking everyone and everything.

>>4170547
>custom round
its alright, not at all bad mind you. but i think it has similar issues as stated about past ideas where it feels like it just overlaps and takes the wind out of, well, the parabellums sails too much.

>>4170557
>>4170550
Any inputs on the custom bullet I made? I plan to use it on West Alpha. If it gets the green light of approval, I'll put down an order of 6 of those bullets. One for each limb on West Alpha.

>>4170551
That's rather insightful of you for asking Tailor's opinions on the Relic based abilities with Arbiter's Appetites. I could go with that.

>>4170547
The bullet is interesting. Could be of limited use against Alpha. Though having a couple of them for backup might be useful

oh, also, ill be waiting to update Novembers sheet til after the level up, that way i can just lump it all in with Ver.4, if thats alright with everyone.

>>4170565
>>4170561
honestly im unsure if its worth it on Alpha. it both may not work correctly on her nor be as effective due to her metal frame nature.

oh, i did misread it and missed the anti-relic part though. but again, its a sub-dermal type round and effect on someone who simply might not have something that properly counts as that anymore.

>>4170561
>to be fair, the fact it mapped out all the crucibles and was able to go beyond just ours was pretty good indicator of that. and yeah, gonna be interesting actually being able to, well, map things out.
Oh, sure, but there was the possibility that someone else who had encountered the Crucibles made it. But if it's reacting to a Relic that the weird void god we met called "one of our toys", then it's probably their work, too.

>does though feel a bit like what we DIDNT in part want to do with FuzzzBuzzes and such though, aka, become big brother tracking everyone and everything.
We'll just have to use it responsibly and only get broad-scope location metadata on anyone who's not an enemy. We can spy on foes, but anyone we have a friendly or even neutral relationship with we'll only check on them when we want to meet with them and can't get in touch, so we look up where they are and head to that general area.

>>4170565
>Any inputs on the custom bullet I made? I plan to use it on West Alpha. If it gets the green light of approval, I'll put down an order of 6 of those bullets. One for each limb on West Alpha.
It's a decent addition to any anti-Relic countermeasures we have to fight Alpha with, though depending on what the skills available to us are we might not need it. But hey, redundancy is good, better to have anti-Relic options and not need them than need them and not have them.

>>4170571
definitely sounds good. No need to make more than one update to something like taht.

>>4170561
>its alright, not at all bad mind you. but i think it has similar issues as stated about past ideas where it feels like it just overlaps and takes the wind out of, well, the parabellums sails too much.

I understand where you're getting at. It's a bullet that has similar functions to the innate ammunition that we're capable of using and there's bound to be heavy overlap no doubt about it. It would be a custom munition in our case because of our core class but it's also bound to be an innate bullet type for gunners of the Calcite Armorer variety.

But I think the same could be said from the other side of the fence if we played Shu as a Calcite armorer and me introducing a bullet like this.

Just think of this as us adopting a part of Magpie's MO, make a bullet for every occasion.

>>4170572
>>4170568
Have we ever thought of using it to run a search on West Alpha? The Void orrey is basically now the ultimate scrying orb with even better tracking than Orwell's Panopticon.

>>4170571
I think as stated it should work on a full-conversion cyborg, but at a penalty. Wedging into the target's body and pushing bits apart would still mess up a cyberbody like Alpha's, but because there isn't a weak point of connection between flesh and machine it wouldn't be able to disrupt things as much.

>>4170578
>Have we ever thought of using it to run a search on West Alpha? The Void orrey is basically now the ultimate scrying orb with even better tracking than Orwell's Panopticon.
It's definitely going to be useful when we're tracking her down for a confrontation.

>>4170578
we can do that just before we search her out to see her initial status and then hit her where it hurts most. Also maybe it can reveal hidden weaknesses not even the Skintalkers could get access to.

>>4170578
>>4170581
for the bullet, im holding out full judgment and voting making it til we see the Contenders upgrades at the very least. for all we know a loophole or work around could make it irrelevant, or give us a better way to do it. i mean, possibly unlikely, but still.

>>4170578
well, we already know what West Alpha is doing and have eyes on her. would let Orwell focus on some other things, but i dont think she WANTS to. on top of the fact she can do it continuously and thats basically her job, saving us from having someone staring at the Orrey for the next while.

at the moment at least, no reason to do that. maybe double check like right before like others are saying, so we can get a better layout over the semi-limited Orwell seems to possibly have, but not really useful at the exact moment.

plus, Orwell might get upset an orb is replacing her.

>>4170578
i will say it feels like it should focus entirely on being anti-relic, over overlapping functions with the Parabellum.
that, or as drawback/contingency move, make it a cost upgrade to pre-made Parabellum rounds only able to be done at a forge or something.

>>4170540
Oh shit, BHOP. the lightning jaw was in Hollys old shell. That get destroyed it what? Tinker Tailor have it to repair or something?

Also linking >>4169439
Again just cause i can and Marco hasn't been seen in a bit.

>>4170574
>>4170572
>>4170571
A thought occurred to me.
Just like how we tagged Holly with a Dominus bloodline and safely extracted her before her shell was destroyed by Magpie's Satellite laser, We should attach a Subversive Recursive Dominus Plateling (a Recursive Plateling with the subversive augmentation active with the Dominus Bloodline Modifier) onto each Spirit shell to act as Emergency life-lines for our Dream Daughter Pilots.

>>4170591
Thanks for you input. I'll go revise the bullet's design and see what I can come up with. Any thoughts on the bullet's abilities to impose a blood tax on the host (basically it increases the cost of any ability that requires HP to use)? I thought it would be in line with the kidney stone thing where passing the kidney stone is really painful.

>>4170595
(The Lighting Jaw was retrieved, so it's fine.)

>>4170595
(Ah, sorry for missing this earlier - in the downtime post-CONSUME vote, he'll be making an appearance, no worries.)

>>4170596
>We should attach a Subversive Recursive Dominus Plateling (a Recursive Plateling with the subversive augmentation active with the Dominus Bloodline Modifier) onto each Spirit shell to act as Emergency life-lines for our Dream Daughter Pilots.
It would be a Succling, actually, those are what allow us to connect Dominus Bloodlines without line of sight. Our biggest problem is that we've only got the two Bloodlines that we can make at a time. We can swap them fast, but we'll have to be quick on the draw if one of the Shells goes into Death's Door.

>Any thoughts on the bullet's abilities to impose a blood tax on the host (basically it increases the cost of any ability that requires HP to use)? I thought it would be in line with the kidney stone thing where passing the kidney stone is really painful.
Feels like it's kind of distracting from the anti-Relic function of the bullet. Maybe if it only affected Relic powers that cost Health, like Sui Tormentis and the like.

>>4170596
I don't think that allows for extra Dominous, so wouldn't really help.

>Bullet
Its alright, but doubling up on too many things i think for one round type.

>>4170598
Ah, good on the relic and neat on marco too.

>>4170539
>>4170547
Amending my vote

>while she might consider it sacrilege, hand Tinker the Arbiter's Appetite Relic and have her look over the anti-relic Abilities you plan to consume, so she can give you any insight into them, their interactions with your current power-sets, and anything else of note she may be able to help with. assuming the idea alone doesn't make her want to vomit in her gas mask.

>Help Rath finish the Spiritus Shells, then install your Dream Daughters as the final touch.
>Spawn Subversive Recursive Succ-Platelings and attach one onto each Spirit shell to act as Emergency life-lines for our Dream Daughter Pilots.

>Make small talk with Rath, you haven't actually had a one on one talk with her at all for a long time.
>"So how are things going with you Rath?"
>"Any thoughts about all of this West Alpha mess?"
>"Got any personal plans you think you'd like to share?"
>"I don't want to impose anything upon you, I just want to hear about your honest thoughts unfiltered."
>"You know...during that fight with Magpie, I saw something that might give you ideas. Magpie had crippled Ace and I thought that Jackie would simply stabilize her and leave her be. But you know what she did instead? She basically picked up Ace and fused with her, turning Ace into Power Armor and keeping the downed daughter safe while stabilizing her at the same time! I didn't even know they managed to develop a Dual Technique like that!"
>simply watch as Rath just slowly turns her head to stare at you the gears in her head starting to rev up.
>"So what if you and Heather took a page out of their playbook?"

A note to BHOP: Tryphphilic Hive is missing the entry file of the Rook Class Swarmling.
This is a bamboozled post.

Speaking of Spirit Shells, what happens if we had multiple types of swarmling? We're almost certainly going to junk Magpie's Core for stats, but suppose we kept it. Spirit Shells get all the traits and upgrades afforded to our swarmlings, so would keeping the Core and having Magpie's crow swarmlings make our Shells start taking on corvid traits?

>>4170653
Probably. Though as long as that Core is still pretty weak(especially considering the original power holder of the Spiritus was insect based as well) it would probably stay pretty weak in that part.

>>4170661
>>4170653
>>4170625
>>4170595

Revised the Kidney Stone Shell.
>Kidney Stone Shells V.2 (Customized Ammunition): The seed of a stone whose bones blossom into a flowery work of unlimited blades. A bullet in the shape of a stone flower seed that bypasses any piercing resistance when embedding itself into its target. Unlike the other munitions forged, this bullet does not damage its host nor does it deal damage over time. Instead, it feeds itself upon the blood its host. Rapidly growing into a stone flower of spears and blades that disrupts implanted relic augmentations and imposes a heavy blood tax on Relics and abilities that are fueled by the host's HP pool by a growing 10/15/20/25% total increase of its original cost for each round it remains in its host. Heavy is the weight of such a beautiful stone flower, and in their attempts to pass on the burden, all will come know its terrible price.

>>4170637
>>4170539
eh, im against bringing up the Ace thing, basically mostly due to the fact im against that idea in the first place.

>>4170653
im still highly of the opinion on not taking anymore levelables without replacing something to do so, temporary anti-relic abilities being the temporary exemption, of course.

>>4170669
>eh, im against bringing up the Ace thing, basically mostly due to the fact im against that idea in the first place.
Yeah, we should probably leave that out. I don't think it would even work for Rath and November, even if it was something we wanted to do.

>im still highly of the opinion on not taking anymore levelables without replacing something to do so, temporary anti-relic abilities being the temporary exemption, of course.
Oh, I am too, I'm just wondering for curiosity's sake. Crow-bugs sound interesting from an aesthetic standpoint.

>>4170637
>>4170539
>while she might consider it sacrilege, hand Tinker the Arbiter's Appetite Relic and have her look over the anti-relic Abilities you plan to consume, so she can give you any insight into them, their interactions with your current power-sets, and anything else of note she may be able to help with. assuming the idea alone doesn't make her want to vomit in her gas mask.

>Help Rath finish the Spiritus Shells, then install your Dream Daughters as the final touch.
>Spawn Subversive Recursive Succ-Platelings and attach one onto each Spirit shell to act as Emergency life-lines for our Dream Daughter Pilots.

>Make small talk with Rath, you haven't actually had a one on one talk with her at all for a long time.
>"So how are things going with you Rath?"
>"Any thoughts about all of this West Alpha mess?"
>"Got any personal plans you think you'd like to share?"
>"I don't want to impose anything upon you, I just want to hear about your honest thoughts unfiltered."

Amending my vote again.

>>4170611
>Our biggest problem is that we've only got the two Bloodlines that we can make at a time. We can swap them fast, but we'll have to be quick on the draw if one of the Shells goes into Death's Door.
Well, we could have gotten more if we invested more levels into Exsanguinating Leash and Gina's Neuromancy instead of hybridizing them immediately at level 5.

>>4170681
>Well, we could have gotten more if we invested more levels into Exsanguinating Leash and Gina's Neuromancy instead of hybridizing them immediately at level 5.
Possibly. Dominus Bloodline has been very useful for us, though, so I don't regret it. And resolving to assemble them at level ten would just mean another ten levels we'd be missing from somewhere else to make the hybrid.

>>4170667
much better. still feels like its doubling up on things a bit, but i think alot of that feeling is also just how out of the blue and unrelated the two are, but id still argue that does matter.

>>4170679
I mean, like i said, i withhold lot of opinions on that til i see the things. unlikely as it is, maybe it IS worth replacing something on Shu with it. again, almost certainly not, but not impossible either.

...you know, an option we do have is, we could take something and just keep it in the Goregrowth Box until we're ready to use it as hybrid material, such as something like Magpies core. wait til Shus Core is maxxed and can be hybridized with anything at a lower rung, then pop in and make crow-bugs.

not saying we do or that would be the best option, just an example of another way to use the Goregrowth box without it impeding upon using things we want to use immediately.

>>4170681
possibly, but we also dont know that for sure, nor how many or how soon. it could easily be the wait just for more would not of been worth not having the Dominus.

>>4170690
Hmm....I think I just had a stroke of inspiration. Let me revise the bullet one more time in order to make it in line with the weaponization of "Pain and problems when passing a kidney stone" theme.

>>4170667
>Kidney Stone Shell V.3: The seed of a stone whose bones blossom into a flowery work of unlimited blades. A bullet in the shape of a stone flower seed that bypasses any piercing resistance when embedding itself into its target. Unlike the other munitions forged, this bullet does not damage its host nor does it deal damage over time. Instead it rapidly grows into a large and heavy stone flower over time that places a growing restriction upon it's host for each round that passes. The effect is shown as follows:
>After one round, The Host's most expensive innate ability becomes restricted from use, overriding the restriction requires a paying a tax equal to 5% of the ability's original cost.
>After two rounds, The Host's second most expensive innate ability also becomes restricted from use, the same restrictions apply.
>After three rounds, the stone flower matures. The Host's three most expensive abilities and a single equipped Relic are now restricted by the bullet's heavy burden from use unless the tax is paid, and the tax is increased to 10% of the original price of any restricted ability.
>Any new Kidney Stone Shells after the first one will place their burdensome tax on the next most expensive ability that hasn't been restricted by a Kidney Stone Shell.
>Heavy is the weight of such a beautiful stone flower, and in their attempts to pass on the burden, all will come know its terrible price.

>>4170690
>>4170611
Revised the Kidney Stone Shell bullet. This is version 3. It's taken a sharp swerve from the previous design. It's more to restrict the use of West Alpha's big ticket abilities and tax her ability to create relics by putting a price that West Alpha HAS to pay in order to use them.

Thoughts?

>>4170725
i mean, its useful yes, though still feels like the anti-relic part gets tacked on.

it also actually is much less useful against Alpha as she uses very few actual abilities. most of her stuff seems to come from permanent relics and artifacts. it would be useful against normal daughters, but not really her. only getting some anti-relic usage out of it on round three is also way too long a wait time for use on someone whos main focus is using relics.

>>4170725
I think this is actually less useful against Alpha. For one thing, Alpha doesn't appear to spend anything on crafting Relics unless she's doing one-off boosters. She doesn't actually have a Bio pool, she just has some abstracted ability to craft Relics. For another, Alpha doesn't have many abilities outside the Relic-crafting that we know of (she's probably got some super-attack that she's never been forced to use before), just the Generating Halo's rocket thrust and a beam cannon in her chest.

>>4170734
and lets not forget the beam could easily be related to the super forge core, which doesn't count as relic or ability.

>>4170739
>>4170734
I did realize that as I was designing it.

I was hoping that West Alpha's Relic Creation would be count as one of her more Expensive abilities in terms of HP cost whenever she flash forges one with her HP pool where The kidney stone shell would then put a tax on it. making her spend more to create one and not get the full refund due to the tax imposed by the Kidney stone upon the relic's creation.

>>4170777
thats a pretty big 'if' and would not at all be surprised if all of that is wrapped up in the artifact/relic itself, and is not at all effected by ability based negations and the like.

>>4170777
As far as we know Alpha only spends Health on crafting when making one-off booster Relics, which is probably a function of the Relics themselves. For regular Relics she appears to have a pool of dedicated pre-treated Biomass that she can recycle endlessly. That was Mara's strategy in her fight against Alpha, sabotage Relics with bombs so that when Alpha consumed them for recycling they'd harm her. If the anti-Relic abilities we have to eat can't do something like that, we should make some sapping charges to plant on Alpha's weapons.

>>4170784
>>4170791
Well i hope that the abilites we can get will devour the Biomass that is pretreated giving her less and less she can recycle if she decides to recycle. giving her less options as the fight progresses.

Even if we cant make them hurt her we can try and run her dry of her most powerful stuff. Hopefully quickly

>>4170784
>>4170791
>>4170807

Grrr....I was hoping that I could do SOMETHING with the bullet. KSS V.3's very good in it's design and other purpose of restricting a normal enemy's big ticket ability, but it doesn't fulfill the original purpose which is disabling Relics. At the same time I don't want to introduce a munition THAT powerful.

Here's the fourth iteration.

>Kidney Stone Shell V.4: The seed of a stone whose bones blossom into a flowery work of unlimited blades. A bullet in the shape of a stone flower seed that bypasses any piercing resistance when embedding itself into its target. Unlike the other munitions forged, this bullet does not damage its host nor does it deal damage over time. Instead it rapidly grows into a large and heavy stone flower over time that places a growing restriction upon it's host for each round that passes. The effect is shown as follows:
>After one round, a single Relic slot becomes restricted from use, overriding the restriction requires a paying a tax equal to 10% of the Relic ability's original cost.
>After two rounds, a second Relic slot also becomes restricted from use, the same restrictions apply.
>After three rounds, the stone flower matures. Three of the Host's Relic slots are now permalocked and disabled for the duration of combat until the Stone flower is removed.
>Any new Kidney Stone Shells after the first one will place their burdensome tax on the any Relics that haven't been restricted by a Kidney Stone Shell.
>Heavy is the weight of such a beautiful stone flower, and in their attempts to pass on the burden, all will come know its terrible price.

>>4170807
we;ll see
for all we know one of the abilities turns any relic we physically touch into an allied snake variant of said relic for all the info we have on them.

>>4170808
er, i think i get what you might mean, but the wording there i do think needs to be changed at least. normal daughters dont have relic slots, and as far as we are aware West Alpha does not work off that model either. its a unique trait to Novembers specific frame, as far as we are aware.

>>4170808
Do we have something like Relic Slots? I know November has them but would the Relics she use necessarily be linked to slots?

God to know what kind of things we will need ot craft we will probably have to spy on WAlpha and then make the relics to speifically counter what she can do.

maybe make some bullets of 'West Alpha slaying' dealing tons of extra damage against her and overriding all abilites that would grant her immunity against such attacks but are expensive and only work on her......... I know a DND concept but i think something worth considering

Fuck, how is Shu still alive

>>4170824
Oh hey. How are you? I was getting kinda worried since you didnt show the last few veins.

Were you sick?

>>4170824
Oh Hi there. Where have you been?

>>4170824
im still curious who this is. no way they dont actually enjoy the quest to keep this up, but it also feels utterly weird for someone to otherwise keep that joke alive unless there was another reason. still hedging bets its someone BHOP knows to some level myself.

>>4170841
that is a good question but probably not one anyone can answer but that anon themselves.

My bet. His wive...... This is her way of fulfilling her guilty pleasure

(Gentlemen, I'll likely post here within the next hour or so, as work's kept me busy today. Thank you for your patience, and take care.)

>>4170824
(Hello there, good to see you're alright. I was wondering where you were.)

>>4170841
>>4170856
(It's not her, I confirmed.)

>>4170860
its no problem. hope works not eating you down too hard.
and i didn't think it was your wife. someone you know sure, but i feel like your wife would simply be able to add more flair to it, if only because she would know you too well.

>>4170860
>(It's not her, I confirmed.)
Ah alright then worth a shot then. The pure simplicity of it all would have been quite nice

Hope they aren't driving you into the ground at work

File: Rath, Pensive.png (342 KB, 511x800)

342 KB PNG

>>4170539

“I know you might think it’s sacrilege, but would you be willing to use this to check out some of the Relic-based countermeasures Gina and the others were able to cook up?” You ask, extending the Arbiter’s Appetite to Tinker Tailor, hesitating when she shakes her head, tapping her goggles.

“Noneed,Icanseeanycounterstomycurrentabilitiesautomatically. MyscannerslitupthesecondIlaideyesonthepileofbiomassoutside.” She informs you, jerking a thumb towards the half-open door as a murmur of voices filters in from just beyond its threshold. “You’vegottwoskilltreesandoneaugmentation. Theskillstreesarenastyones; onecanmakenewly-generatedRelicsandConstructscomeoutstillbornandtheotherallowstheusertostealafoe’sheldRelicsandusethematnocostforafewsecondsbeforethey’rereturnedtotheowner.”

“Neat…and the Augment?” You add.

“ThatonereducesthedamagesustainedfromsuccessiveRelic-originatingattacksfromasingleRelic-user,quicklyreducingtheirdamagetonothingifthey’remainlyusingattacks.” She explains, shuddering in place before adding; “I’mgladI’veneverhadtofaceanythingwiththat.I’dbeSOL.”

Thanking the quirky Artisan for her time, you turn your attentions to Rath as November politely excuses herself, exiting the room to relax with the others that are gathered outside, granting you a moment alone with her…or as alone as you’re going to get with Tailor busily tinkering away in the corner of the simple room.

"So how are things going with you, Rath?" You ask, putting some finishing touches on the quartet of Spiritus Shells as she takes a reprieve from her swift work. "Any thoughts about all of this West Alpha mess? I don't want to impose anything upon you, I just want to hear about your honest thoughts unfiltered."

"Shit man, just...I want her dead just as much as Prime, at this point." Comes her weary reply as she lies down on the floor beside you, watching you tweak the shells' chitinous faces to be a bit closer to the genuine articles. "I dunno, I...I wanna get to the Cord. I wanna END all this so bad that my palms are gettin' itchy, if that makes sense?"

"Ha, yeah. It really does." You chuckle weakly, and Rath returns a little half-smile that crinkles the her freckled cheeks. "Got any personal plans you think you'd like to share?"

"What, for like...after we win?" She asks, and you just leave it ambiguous with a slight shrug. "Fuck...haven't really thought of it. It's not so much that I got plans, and more like...I can tell how much it's weighing on everybody right now. I'd love to keep fighting, keep getting stronger and everything, but for their sake? Hell, for yours? I just want to break this whole goddamn thing so it can't hurt anybody anymore...everything after that's just gravy."

(Continued)

>>4171004

"I know I'm not as perceptive as Dorian or Jules, and I don't have the...mind-meldy thing like you and Gina have, but I can tell that the fighting is a lot. For everybody." The red-head continues, turning her gaze to the ceiling as you pause your work, content to allow the girl beside you to speak freely for the first time in a while. "Aunt Heather's back in the fight, and she sure as shit doesn't deserve that. Dorian and Julia deserve to have a fuckin' date that isn't interrupted by the monster of the week, or day, or hour, or what-the-fuck-ever."

"And Francine!" Rath declares, throwing her hands towards the ceiling. "I was suspicious as all hell of her to start, and now that she's just tryin' to sort herself it's been nothing but Proxy drama for her. I mean, she's taking it like a champ, but it still ain't easy. Amara deserves a childhood that isn't pumping out clones and studying how to kill from a goddamn space ninja...or maybe she does, fuck it. Maybe that's her jam. Maybe she hasn't gotten the chance to figure out what she is and what she isn't, 'cause the Crucible hasn't given her a choice in the matter. It's just thrown us all into the grindhouse, and fuck whatever we want, right? I mean, you and Gina..."

"...me and Gina?" You prompt when Rath trails off.

"I 'unno, dude. You...you love each other. It's awesome, and...but I hate that you two can't get a fucking break."

"Ha, I think we're making due." You laugh, and Rath's brow furrows.

"None of us should have to just 'make due'." Rath retorts angrily. "Fuck that noise! We're gonna kick Alpha's ass, kick West's ass, kick the Cord's ass, and whoever elses' ass until we get what we're due, and fuck 'making due'. We deserve a happy ending for all the shit we've been through."

"What's yours look like?"

"Huh?" The younger girl asks, cocking one eyebrow at you as you lean back on your palms, holding off a moment on activating the Spiritus shells on account of the conversation.

"Your happy ending." You clarify. "You've talked about me, Gina, Julia, and everyone else, but you haven't mentioned yourself. So? What's due to you, once we finish this thing?"

"Ha, uh...haven't really thought about that, if I'm bein' honest." Comes her sheepish reply. "I guess...hanging out with everybody, seein' what we're all like when we're not in Battle Royale mode. Getting Aunt Heather's body back, if that's a thing that can happen. Ha, maybe spending time with you an' GG, if you don't mind a third wheel."

"We'd make a bitchin' tricycle." You counter, forcing a bark of laughter out of the girl beside you before she goes quiet, mulling over your question from earlier. Just watching her for a moment, you wonder what else she'd be willing to share, in this simple, vulnerable moment of privacy.

>>Ask about what sort of world she'd like to see, after all this.

>>Ask about the other Crucibles.

>>Ask her again about what she really wants.

>>Ask about Lara.

>>Write-In

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

>>4171004
huh, neat. the stillborn and damage reduction both sound superb, but the relic stealing one honestly doesn't sound very useful at all.

>>4171010
>Ask about what sort of world she'd like to see, after all this.

the Lara one feels too personal and asking her a repeat question feels a bit forced. and the other Crucible ones is... a bit weird honestly. i guess BHOP is trying to give us an excuse to use the Void Orrey, but i still dont think its a time for that, and without it that question honestly feels out of place.

(Gentlemen, voting shall remain open until 7:00PM, Eastern time, at which point the CONSUME vote will drop alongside a welcome reunion, per the dice rolls. Now, what I'll likely do is pause posting for the afternoon tomorrow to allow myself ample time to complete the level-up flavor text and compilation, with posting to resume some time in the early evening, as we're working at half our normal headcount at work due to state law. It's part of why things have been so hectic these past few weeks, and I once again thank you all for having patience with my chaotic schedule. Let me know if that works for you, and stay safe.)

(Bamboozled to re-add my trip.)

>>4171028
(Ah, the Crucibles question had more text that I ended up having to cut for space. It was essentially asking that if she wants everyone to have a happy ending, then since there will still be other Crucibles out there then how she feels about a threat still swimming about in space. It didn't really have anything to do with the Void Orrery, at least not how I intended.)

>>4171010
>>Ask about what sort of world she'd like to see, after all this. And what she thinks her place will be afterwards in the new World

>>4171031
oof, that sounds pretty bad. i guess i dont know your job, but it sounds pretty computer oriented so im surprised they havent just made you all work from home, but i guess that may not be possible.

i suppose that works. technically a bit earlier than id like, but more for just personal reasons than anything i cant bend to. plus, i suppose compared to usual starting at 6 EST means we might all actually get to bed at a reasonable time, though the later starting time also means that wouldn't be as big an issue as usual... but hey, that just means more time to recover from it too, so alls good.

>>4171037
oh, ok. yeah if we're just asking her her opinion on the other ongoing Crucibles and possibly what to do about them, that does change things.

>>4171028
>>4171010
ill add;
>Ask about the other Crucibles.
aswell. with that explanation its both safe to ask and actually a very good question to bring up. we Anons have mildly talked about it, but more in a passing memey sense. though to be fair we also never knew just how bad it was out there for a good while.

have a feeling we're not planing to go down the 'shut down all crucibles' route, but i also dont trust that route either and what that might actually mean on said route.

>>4171010
>Ask her again about what she really wants.
Fuck it, I'm going for the Shu/Gina/Rath OT3. Plus Shu's earned her trust and companionship, so I want to show her that she can let down her guard for Shu and share her most intimate desires with complete support.

>>4171069
>Fuck it, I'm going for the Shu/Gina/Rath OT3
please dont, i dont need that level of joy sapped from my enjoyment of this quest...

>>4171076
It would be doing the opposite and adding joy for me. So I'm sorry, but no.

They're all really good together.

>>4171090
i disagree with that heavily, they really arent, especially with how people are pushing it. its already annoying enough how much people harp on those elements as it is.

but fine, noted. i ask you stop using Carter then please.

>>4171031
You're considered essential enough that they haven't sent you home, too? My condolences, BHOP. Get some rest in when and where you can, friend.

>>4171106
I... never used Carter? For anything?

Are you confusing me for someone else?

>>4171116
oh, grah.
im confusing your username with another due to color similarity and my contact for some reason being dry as hell today.
figures someone with only three posts would appear only to push shipping nonsense.

>>4171121
>>4171106
I had a write-in ready and such for this vote about asking Rath what she really wants. But because you're that... defensive about things Then, let me make this clear.

This write-in is more about Giving Rath the opportunity to be selfish for just once in her life in order to combat the mental corruption that her Vitruvian core imposes on her mind instead of a Segway for a 3-some.

Because the corruption from Tensile Strands as a vitruvian ability feels like it's about stretching yourself and being so selfless to the point that it almost feels like a Martyrdom complex. And we really don't want Rath to go down like that. Angry and hotheaded to the point where she'll constantly sacrifice her life and her future for her family's sake, which was the same struggle and trauma Rath suffered when she was a child. If we don't address this issue, we'll end up letting Rath make the same mistakes that led to her previous family's ruin.


>>4171010
>"As the leader of this family, I constantly have to weigh my decisions, between about what's best for us, what's best for the world, and what I want for myself. Every time we go out there and fight I have to balance the lives of everyone in my hands when I send out orders. And I always try my best to take care of everyone in the downtime."
>"But at times I feel like I've been stretched thin. So many spinning plates to juggle. Each of them threatening to fall off."
>"You're Courageous, you're passionate, you can obliterate a mountain with a punch, and you've been so selfless. Putting yourself constantly on the frontlines for our sake."
>"You've done so much for everyone, for your friends, for your family, just constantly stretching yourself to the limit and keep everyone safe and happy."
>"Sometimes I get the feeling that you've been stretching yourself too thin. And it scares me at times. You never told us if you wanted anything."
>"Sometimes...being selfless can be a bad thing."
>"Rath, is there anything you yourself would want? Something for yourself?"
>"I'm asking you to be selfish for once. It's okay you can't think of anything at the moment. Just think about it. But when you do think of something..."
>"Let me know what Rachel Neeson wants for herself."

>>4171010
>>4171155
That looks pretty good. Supporting.

I've unfortunately been burned out on making the long write-ins that this quest thrives on some time ago. Wish I could find that energy again.

>>4171155
And I now realized that there are things on that write-in that do not fit what I'm trying to convey to Rath.

Let me go take a 30 minute walk and revise this when I get back.

>>4171155
i guess that works, not perfect but its not bad.
honestly id not have really thought you meant that without the first warning, possibly even by itself, but especially just with the actual explanation about your worries about her corruption, that alone is enough context.

as for said corruption, mind you yours isnt stepping over the line or anything, but more it brings up the topic. any more direct or even heavy indirect work on it i still think will require us to actually understand corruption a bit better, Raths especially. or well, Vitruvian i guess, but technically same thing more or less.

still also think we need to at least talk to November about it. i dont really think talking to her actual, real family about our concerns over a friend is not trusting Rath or going over her head, especially when you take into account on some level Corruption is something you actually cant fight against. i mean, Vitruvian to some level might be, but it is still an unnatural force to some level poking at you constantly. changes things a bit i think, over if it was fully just her natural emotional state we were not trusting.

>>4171174
personally i just like to save it for when it feels like it matters more, aswell as i just like seeing what BHOP himself comes up with, which i feel at times doesn't get to happen as much. not as much recently, but there have been times when its felt like our long write-ups have been excessive and unnecessary, myself included a bit.

>>4171180
thats fine i guess. personally i dont think we need to make this conversation at all even slightly heavy or pressing. her corruption actually isnt that far along and while there may be issues, i dont think they have actually shown up in any way that seems too strong to need to press.

that, and trying to go too heavy right before all this when we're trying to let people relax seems.... ill timed.

>>4171194
is there anything you think I could get away with cutting out while still delivering the message?

As for Carter's situation in Cradleton... the rest of the chapters aren't finished yet, but somehow the Epilogue chapter is almost done. After that it's basically filling in what happened between chapter 2 and the epilogue, although the epilogue came out steamier than I expected. I hope you don't mind a bit of character development for Carter due my interpretation of Carter's backstory and abilities, I had to apply certain liberties while writing certain sections out. However, I did make sure to do my best to keep it close to what you wrote on Carter's character sheet. He will still be the same sheepish boy who tries to oversell his masculinity with a group of spiders as his friends in the end, but he'll have an experience that could be used as a springboard for future adventures. When I pass the baton back to you.

>>4171244
honestly i dont think anything needs to be per say, over maybe cut down, if that makes sense. like, maybe some of the lines go on a bit much for a conversation not meant to be heavy? mind you, not saying it has to be a causal conversation at all, i agree and understand wanting to be a bit more in depth. only i guess im saying you can ask her the same thing you want without making it sound like she's given up and arm and leg over everything.

at worse it sounds like we're maybe a bit too worried over her and her response, especially given she was giving off a very chill and relaxed attitude, making it clear she wasn't really worried about it that much. again, doesn't mean we cant ask her about it more in depth or poke a bit at if shes just not even trying to think on it or something.

its not a bad write-up at all, nor am i against what you're trying to ask mind you, just yeah i think it could be shaved down a bit in tone and length, given the situation and context.

I will never understand how you could write the epilogue before the rest, but hey, if it works for you, it works and good job, considering the length you implied it to be getting to. and its fine, character development is more than fine but agreeable, so long as it feels like it flows and isnt re-writing the character. he can still grow and change a good amount though, im fine with that. also dont be afraid to ask any questions or explanations if you want or just feel you need them, though so long as its not twisting the point or whatnot of his backstory or other elements, im fine even with you expanding or adding to that or other elements of his character. powerset too, just like how i added the springboard ribs and mapmaking ability from his spiders.

speaking of, while im more than happy to write more of Carter, and probably will, id also like to say id be interested in sometime seeing your interpretation of him interacting with Luna. mind you, no pressure or anything like that. if it doesn't feel right or you're not up to something like that, etc, no problem, but while on the topic simply saying its something id be interested to see.

>>4171010
>>Write-In
>"Seriously, though, Rath: You're amazing. You are one of the strongest people I know. Brave, passionate, caring...I don't know where I'd be now without you. I owe you so much."
>"Sometimes I worry that I don't tell you that enough. That I rely on that strength so much that I take it for granted. That I've given you the impression that other concerns are so important that we can't spare time for you."
>"That's wrong. It couldn't possibly be more wrong. I love you, Rath. Everyone in this team loves you. I want you to be happy, and I don't want you to feel like you've got to focus on everyone else's happiness instead of your own."
>"So whatever happy ending you decide on, tell me and I'll move heaven and earth to get you there. You deserve everything I can give you."

>>4171358
>>4171155
>>4171010
while i kinda like the idea behind these, one i think is a bit too serious in the worry department, the other feels a bit too serious in the chipper/'id fucking die for you' department.

i support the message but write-in wise i feel like the seriousness for both needs to be toned down and shortened, so if they're used id only support them if that could be done.

so kinda vote-supporting them, but only if overhauled a good bit. think somewhere between them probably fits.

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>>4171010

"As the leader of this family, I constantly have to weigh my decisions, between about what's best for us, what's best for the world, and what I want for myself." You begin, lying down beside Rath as you stare up at the ceiling alongside her. "Every time we go out there and fight I have to balance the lives of everyone in my hands when I send out orders. And I always try my best to take care of everyone in the downtime."

"But at times I feel like I've been stretched thin, with so many spinning plates to juggle. Each of them threatening to fall off." You breathe with a sigh, turning your head as you meet Rath's glittering citrine eyes. "You're courageous. You're passionate, you can obliterate a mountain with a punch, and you've been so selfless. Putting yourself constantly on the front lines for our sake."

"Yeah, well...we all have. Every one of us." Rath shrugs, putting her hands behind her head. "I'm nothing special."

"You're selling yourself short, as usual. Look, Rath...you've done so much for everyone, for your friends, for your family, just constantly stretching yourself to the limit...too thin, actually." You insist as Rath averts her eyes from you and back to the ceiling. "It scares me, at times. You never told us if you wanted anything."

"I don't. Seriously." Rath says firmly, a defensive edge to her voice. "I do what I do 'cause I care about you, and GG, and Aunt Heather, and...everybody. I'm nothin' special, compared to 'yall."

"You're one of the strongest people I know. Brave, passionate, caring...I don't know where I'd be now without you. I owe you so much, so don't get all modest on me, 'kay?" You say, poking the other girl in the ribs to prompt a giggled protest. "Seriously, though - sometimes I worry that I don't tell you that enough. That I rely on your strength so much that I take it for granted. That I've given you the impression that other concerns are so important that we can't spare time for you."

Her eyes meet yours once more, and as her giggles subside, you see something shift in her eyes as she realizes just how serious you are, how much truth there is to your words.

"That's wrong. It couldn't possibly be more wrong. I love you, Rath. Everyone in this team loves you." You declare, seeing a tinge of white light start to shine in the red-head's cheeks. "I want you to be happy, and I don't want you to feel like you've got to focus on everyone else's happiness instead of your own. So whatever happy ending you decide on, tell me...and I'll move heaven and earth to get you there. You deserve everything I can give you, and that's a fact."

"Shu, I...t-thank you. That means a lot...seriously." She says finally, smiling weakly. "As for what I want, I...shit, man. I really don't think I know what I-"

The sudden clamor of voices from the main living area draws your attentions elsewhere, cutting Rath off mid-sentence as you note a familiar burst of positivity emanating across the empathic channel.

(Continued)

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>>4171495

"Heh...mind if I take a rain check on the sappiness?" Comes Rath's sheepish request as she props herself up on her elbows. "I...I do wanna talk, though. I'm startin' to think maybe voicing some of this stuff might...help, y'know?"

"I'd like that, Rath." You say, returning her smile with one of your own. "A lot."

Rath hops to her feet and promptly offers a hand that you gladly take, and by the time you both emerge from the room to see what the commotion's about, you're greeted to a sight for sore eyes.

Julia, dazzling in a finely-crafted leather jacket that's perfectly made for her skinless form, complete with a pair of dark jeans. Your family surrounds her, asking her a dozen questions all at once while mobbing her with a dozen matching hugs, with Dorian hanging back at the edge of the crowd with a small smirk on his face, the center of his affections now the center of attention in your temporary home. Julia's dark eyes catch yours and she smiles even wider, her dazzling grin even more stark against the black of her jacket and the scarlet of her bare flesh. The questions slowly subside as you approach, and Amara slides off of Julia's back as your prodigal hostess walks over to you, throwing her arms wide to accept the hug you happily gift her.

"I m-missed you, Shu." She says into your shoulder, holding you tight. "I know it wasn't long, but it f-felt like it."

"I missed you too, Julia. You look fantastic! How've the Hyenas been treating you?" You ask, holding her at arm's length as you admire the bold change of fashion.

"They're fantastic, and Laoc's c-coming along well. Everyone's so strong, and I'm so happy I was there to h-help." Comes her earnest answer. "The Hyenas are ready to help if you need them, thought it'd just be Ivey and maybe Reze...s-sorry, Razorback. She p-prefers Reze, but it'd just be a few, so that Laoc won't be left without d-defenses."

"That's perfect. I welcome anything they've got to offer." You say with a smile, staring into the other girl's dark, shining eyes. "I want a full recap, if you're up for it. I want to know how you've been getting along, what you've been doing, everything!"

Julia's about to reply, just before she pauses and glances over to the pile of biomass in the corner of the room. "T-tell you what...I know I'm famished, and I'm sure I'm n-not the only one. I want to catch up, but maybe that's b-best left for after we eat? You know how t-tired we get afterwards."

You're inclined to agree, and as you direct everyone towards the spoils of combat, you realize that despite the tumultuous emotions and events that went into the biomass that lies before you, there's a silver lining to it all...

...you're going to use it to do some good. Together, as one.

As a family, whole once more.

>>LEVEL-UP POINTS AVAILABLE: 36

LEVEL-UP LIST: https://pastebin.com/E9b6SCUs

>>KADATH: 2 Levels available for all eligible party members.

>>JULIA: 5 Unassigned Level-up points available.

YOU ARE IN CONTROL

(Gentlemen, voting shall remain open for the next sixteen hours, with posting to resume in approximately twenty-four, due to the additional time needed to type up what flavor text I can’t get to tonight and given how busy work's proving to be as of late. I’ll be available for the next few hours to address any questions you may have, and I do hope you have a good rest of your evening, one and all.)

>>4171500
Right, so we can give everyone 5 points, with one spare, as im assuming we're including Julias as her extra five are there to catch her up to the missed one. personally im fine giving her the extra, both as a welcome back gift, and because using a thematic reason makes the decision easy.

with that though, how long everyone need/want? id say an hour, especially given how many points Julia has. also, anyone want to arbiter? id personally actually wish to not do it, but if no one else is up to it, om ok doing it.

>>4171507
An hour should be plenty.

The extra point should go to Julia she needs it to stay up to date with us.

I dont want to arbiter either... I am guessing that at the end of this i will be the most tired person out of all of us just because of my timezone

>>4171507
I'll take up arbitration. Although I might get interrupted by family and whatnot, so be prepared to take over.

>>4171503
Thanks BHOP! Looking forward to the level up vote, have a great sleep!

>>4171507
In the last vote, everybody received 6 points each. So if we give everybody 5 points this time, then Julia would be best served by getting the extra point. That will bring her up from 5 points to 6, and she'll be breaking even.

>>4171515
oh, well thats bad timing, but alight, sounds good.

>>4171507
I'm just getting started making dinner, but it's just pasta so it should go fast. I'll be ready within an hour, probably.

>>4171507
>>4171517
It's definitely going to be a doozy however. We have 8 daughters with their level ups to go through.

>>4171503
Although I am sort of confused as to Julia's situation. Are you saying that Julia has 5 extra points to play with as part of her catch-up/time away or is that her share?

>>4171525
(She has five level-up points that only she may use, from her time with the Hyenas.)

>>4171507
>>4171511
>>4171516
>>4171524

One hour sounds fine. Let's reconvene at 8:30 EST. starting now.

>>4171527
yeah that works.

>>4171525
7 family members, due to November not being able to take levels, but yeah, so it will be.

11 points to Julia... whew.

it is jumping the guns slightly though, but i will go ahead and say honestly there not much here besides the two anti-relic abilities worth taking i personally feel.

>>4171500
I think we should plan for what our party's going to be against Alpha, so the right members can get the anti-relic Abilities, even if we only have them for that fight and then recycle them with the Engine.

I think that Magpie's core should be made into stats. I'm against getting Psychotic Swarm though. She also had several useful Relic-based augments, if any party member can make good use of them. Militia Machination could be great for Shu and the Contender, for example.

Damn shame we can't get Eldritch Cancellation. Yet another downside of Magpie ending herself.

>>4171531
gotta agree. i see one or two gems the rest is just stat fodder

>>4171533
since we will be doing each character individually you can save your arguments for when we actually get to voting

i will say as a forewarning i plan to put Muphys Mandate and Repetitions Resilience on every, albeit with at least Muphys being a very temporary measure on everyone.

normally id be very against this but i think this is contextually one of the only times being lenient on something like that makes a damn lotta sense.

also my god Julia is going to be hell.

>>4171533
>Damn shame we can't get Eldritch Cancellation. Yet another downside of Magpie ending herself.
I don't think that's why we can't take it, actually. Some theorizing:

>Magpie's teleportation skill is called Eldridge Experiment.

>The U.S.S. Eldridge was a naval destroyer escort that according to popular myth (though confirmed as a hoax) was involved in a project called the Philadelphia Experiment, an attempt to render a ship invisible that went horribly wrong and instead teleported it to another dimension.

>Eldridge Experiment "skirts the line of what's natural to the Crucible and what is certainly not".

>The flavor text implies Mara and Magpie were deliberately hunting for this ability.

>Eldritch Cancellation's text says "that which was not given freely is not yours to take".

So, from this I conclude that Mara and Magpie traveled to another dimension. I'm going to guess it was the Crucible's extradimensional back-end, the many-angled spaces where it keeps the mechanisms that let us cheat conservation laws. Some attempt to break the system and end the Hunger by making the Crucible generate infinite food, maybe. And in the process, they wound up altering their status within the Crucible, how they relate to the extradimensional back-end, and that's what gave them Eldritch Cancellation. We can't take it because Mara and Magpie were never intended to have that ability, no Daughter was, it's the equivalent of glitching your way into accessing dummied-out content in a videogame.

>>4171547
That is a very fair point i will take into consideration as well

>>4171550
im iffy on the theory, though i will say it has merit.
but... er... in the end there you did kinda wrap back around to agreeing we cant take it.

>>4171542
I'll unfortunately be likely asleep like always during those level up votes. That's why I'm putting some of my thoughts out here right now.

>>4171558
Yes, because I didn't say that we could take it, but that I differed on my belief as to why we couldn't take it. It's not because Magpie deleted herself, it's because of weirdness to do with the ability itself.

>>4171562
oh, pff. i misread again.
my bad.

>>4171564
No worries.

>>4171571
(Apologies, Gentlemen - please disregard my previous statement, as I allowed enough level-up points for the Barbers and the Crew to sample some of the defensive powers, with their totals taken out automatically. My sincerest apologies, it's been a long day.)

>>4171573
Dont worry about it OP. Seems like the day took a lot out of you.

I was kinda thinking that even if they hadnt we could have asked them to have them trade in levels afterwards so they can at least get the resilience.... Its super useful in any instance not just WAlpha

And we would still get the full amount. That would have been of course if they had wanted to/agreed to it

>>4171573
oh, whew.
had a long post and a very difficult decision there for a second.

i will still say IC id like to encourage them to take Muphys and Repetitions, even if just temporarily, on everyone.

I may run a tad late despite my punctuality. There's chicken in the oven and for some godawful reason, the time it's done cooking coincides the time the voting session actually begins. So do forgive me if I'm at least five minutes late.

also, kinda a shame Magpie streamlined her Core so much. because at level one, its kinda like with Calcite Armorers alot of times in that its no different than other Hive Mistress abilities, so we really have no view of what it might becomes at all.

not sure it would be worth it even if we could, especially given how many abilities everyone already has, but still.

>>4171584
(I will say that it was, by far, her most powerful ability, as hinted at in the skill summary.)