This post has the following content warnings:
Lucy attempts to solve post-Razmir Ustalav
Next Post »
+ Show First Post
Total: 1094
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

"...Ustalav, Worldwound, Amulet?" Plus Arazni but she's not going to say that part out loud. 

Permalink

"- Oh, I'm sorry, I interpreted that as a list of questions," says Vaus.

Permalink

"No, no, I'm just holding off on asking because I am extremely prone to getting distracted by sidequests. I'm pretty sure it's part of why I read Chaotic."

Permalink

"Very reasonable," says Kehler.

They have a tentative schedule for her! They propose she follows the sequence of assembling toes from lots of people, raise dead, and then go fix the world. They propose she borrows one of their wizards to teleport her places and Count Tiriac has already volunteered as a bodyguard but she should probably have more bodyguards, probably including a cleric and/or a paladin, since clerics and wizards can dispel a lot of effects that would seriously threaten her and the Iomedaean philosophy is that if you cannot win a fight the appropriate response is to cheat harder.

The extra bodyguards won't help against Wish-kidnapping, but the only known sources for that are direct divine intervention (which almost never occurs, but then again diamond crabs don't usually show up in Golarion), Geb, Hell, and any secret ninth-circle wizards who like Geb have refrained from meddling in world affairs for so long as to cease to be a part of the geopolitical landscape are the only forces likely to get one off through the magic items they are attempting to coat her with. They will help her get away if whoever the current most powerful demon at the Worldwound takes personal offense to her trying to close it and paralyzes her with one of the rare spells a Ring of Delayed Doom doesn't work on so his minions can try to kill her.

(This is a known thing Balors, the most powerful species of demon common enough to be described as a species, can do, though it might still fail if she is Just Too Tough For It.)

(The first thing on the schedule still involves a lot of people in Lastwall running around so she can have very large numbers of toes in a Toe Bin, though in fact people other than her can heal a missing toe. If she wants to read books about Iomedae and/or talk to a cleric of Sarenrae - she has multiple churches in Lastwall, she's one of the most popular Good gods - that would be a good time for it.)

Permalink

She considers this briefly, and says, "I'll spend the time reading." 

(She did have the thought that it would be a good idea to actually talk to the cleric of Sarenrae about, you know, having talked to Sarenrae, but also her books covered a wider array of issues... the tie breaker was that right now reading books felt more self-care-y.)

Permalink

Right!

- Oh, one twenty-second thing, they completely understand if she objects: They would like to test if she is completely immune to the absolute minimum attack magic, to confirm their guesses about her being Very Very Tough. They do not think there is any chance this can hurt her given that she can survive cutting off all her own limbs and understand if she's not comfortable with letting them cast potentially-harmful spells on her, but thought it was worth suggesting it anyway.

Permalink

Oh, sure, go ahead. 

Permalink

Is she sufficiently tough to not be dazzled by a bright light appearing in front of her eyes and sufficiently strong-Willed to see through a petty illusion meant to convince her a bag with stuff in it is empty, a couple times with different lights and bags?

Permalink

...Well...

So, the thing is, the lights? Are not remotely bright enough for her eyes to parse them as inconvenient. She's part star. They're going to have to try some other thing that is not light-based for that one. 

The bag...looks like it has an illusion on it, instead of looking like it does or does not contain Stuff. 

Permalink

Touch intended to make her very slightly fatigued? Auditory instead of visual illusion?

Permalink

She doesn't notice that the fatigue touch is supposed to do anything. She notices that the auditory illusion is magic in some way but not that the specific magic is that it's an illusion. 

Permalink

... Spell from scroll intended to abruptly slow her metabolism down? Or make her feel mildly nauseated?

(There's a shortage of low-level Will effects that aren't mind-affecting, to which they already know she's basically immune to, she's under Mind Blank.)

... How about if they cast Protection from Evil on her again and she tries to throw it off?

Permalink

Her metabolism does not slow down, she is not nauseated. 

She throws off Protection from Evil fairly trivially when she actually tries to. 

Permalink

Yeah, their assumption that she is in fact fairly immune to low-level magic if she wants to be seems basically confirmed.

Permalink

Cool! Now to locate the comfiest chair in the room and retreat there with her books. 

Permalink

They will move to a different room, or can get her a different room if she'd prefer that, but yes!

Permalink

She's fine with whatever. 

She starts with the Sarenrite holy texts. What's Sarenrae's deal, besides Lucy's favorite word?

Permalink

Sarenrae's deal is that everyone in the world has, deep inside them, a fundamental spark of goodness, and Sarenrae wants to blow on the spark and inspire it to flame. Sarenrae specifically believes in patience and redemption and the slow work of inspiring goodness in others instead of smiting them; she believes in in everyone fundamentally deserving good things and being capable of good things, and tries to help everyone, whoever they are. She's one of the ancient gods, never having been human, but also one of the ones who provides most to humanity; Sarenrite priests are all over the place, providing healing magic. Her symbol is the sun that provides warmth and life to the world. Sarenrae doesn't think anyone's infallible - Sarenrae once smote a city because She thought there was a risk of them releasing Rovagug, The God Who Eats Gods, and She regrets this not wholly because it went wrong; even the most powerful can fail, and, like Sarenrae, you need to pick yourself up when you do, and keep doing Good, and because of this she values - humility and being slow to judge, and not condemning others because we all only have part of the picture.

She is allies with most of the other nonevil gods, but her closest allies include Shelyn, goddess of love, Erastil, god of - tiny peaceful communities where everyone is happy - and Desna, goddess of freedom.

She is the chief god of the Kelesh Empire, which is very large and also on a different continent.

Her chief enemies are Rovagug, who wants to eat the universe, and Asmodeus, who wants to corrupt and enslave all life.

Permalink

 

Huh. 

Lucy can sympathize with that viewpoint, but it's not how she thinks of things at all. She doesn't really think of most people of having good deep down that can be kindled, she mostly thinks about aligning people's incentives so they behave well regardless of how innately good they are. Which might amount to the same thing, in practice, since she doesn't see any indication that "blow on the spark and inspire a flame" involves literally interacting magically with people's minds to amplify their altruistic impulses, or any other such mind control. 

...Sarenrae...might, actually, have a more constructive view on it...someone who's behaving well because you're around to align their incentives might well go back to their wicked ways the moment you leave. Lucy didn't just tell Grandmother, "pretty please stop killing people because I asked you to," she introduced the Bazaar to Mum and Wilbur and has been making actual progress at convincing them that human lives have value... 

...Even Mr. Veils--she still isn't sufficiently aligned with that Master to have had a frank conversation with them about anything that matters, but based on what she's gotten from the Masters she does talk to...even Mr. Veils might have a spark of something that could lead to a redemption arc...Lucy, personally, has no particular leverage to make that happen, but...

Maybe...Sarenrae's version is...what happens when you have a world full of allies. When you don't have to assume that, for something to be done, you had better either do it yourself or delegate it to a specific other person, and maybe have to bribe that person to do it... 

And her symbol is the sun, it's so nice for there to be a Good sun Sarenrae still isn't a Judgment, that's not how it works even if she did speak to Lucy in Correspondence. 

Lucy definitely wants to talk to a Sarenrite cleric more than she did before she read these books but it continues to not actually be urgent. 

Permalink

By this point a Bag of Holding holding toes has been collected for her!

Permalink

Awesome, she will stuff that in one of her pockets. 

Permalink

And then an adventuring party has been assembled for her! In one of the courtyards is Ristomaur Tiriac (still looking very pale, if somewhat less than he was dead), a middle-aged man in shiny armor with a scarf wrapped around his head and a sun-symbol prominent on most of his gear, a confident-dangerous-body-language woman of unclear age wearing extremely magical embroidered robes and with a headband on her head, and Tiriac's wolf.

(This may, in fact, be insufficient in the worst crisis, and is also one of the scariest teams Lastwall can put together on an hour's notice that fits in a Teleport.)

Permalink

"Hello! I'm Lucy!" She...does not hug Tiriac, because he consented to it once and did not consent to it once, and that is not a pattern that establishes precedent for Hugs Whenever. 

Permalink

Tiriac will bow. "Miss Whitman, these are Giustina Agliana de Caserta -" the woman, who will close the book she was reading with a snap - "Sixth-circle conjurer of Lastwall and lady of Taldor -"

de Caserta will curtsey in a way that does not involve releasing her grip on her book -

"- and Dawnbringer Kais, seventh-circle cleric of the Church of Sarenrae, once of Rahadoum."

Kais will - salute/bow?, taking a half-step back, raising his hand to his chest and lowering his head slightly, before rising.

(All of them, except the wolf, are approximately covered with minor magic items. The wolf only has a couple.)

Permalink

"I like your goddess!" she tells Dawnbringer Kais. "She told me to find Count Tiriac, and I've been reading her holy books and honestly they explain some things I've been doing wrong at home." 

Total: 1094
Posts Per Page: