On a stormy night, a beaten traveler walks into the tavern....Rolled an 8, which translates to Gravy on the start menu. Lyriel's journey of indeterminate length starts today.
(Dang, it's been a while since I've actually tried to play this game.)
Her arsenal is immediately cut down to something a tad more consistent. Beats the AI0 with a little trouble, but Mitosis Photon and a hasty Forest Spirit doesn't meant much against Otys.
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4t3 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55k 55l 55l 55m 55m 55n 55n 55o 55p 55q 55q 55r 55r 55t 55t 58q 58t 58t 590 8pmShe's always been one for experimentation, though, and she quickly decides to try to tap into the blessed Earth she abandoned almost immediately once more. She refuses to throw away any of her possessions; in this harsh world, the few scraps one can find may build empires. She decides to let the children play with their Photons and moves on to tougher fights.
Her dragons take well to her; they are almost always the first to leap to her call of battle, sometimes even quicker than she can whip out her knife in battle. Her next opponent is an Archer that attempts to use another one of those Spirits, along with some poisonous jellyfish. She lets herself get stung exactly once before commanding her dragon to squash the disgusting thing. Her Graboid soon follows her battle call, and despite the invocation of a healing spell, the battle is hers, with a small Gnome Rider fleeing from the mercenary and bullish charger leaping to her side. The archer, in desperation, pulls out a shining sword of pure Light while shielding himself in a thorny carapace, but the stings are negligible and she perseveres.
She collects her reward and whistles quietly as she moves onward. The night is long, and she has many sorrows to escape. Her dragons do not leap as quickly this time as she faces an opponent of ether and wind, shooting Sparks at her in a devilish ambush. Leaping up, she readies her battle call, only to find that her opponent has sent a Dragonfly at her in some sort of mockery of her troops; at least, the growls of the mercenary riding the Armagio hint as such. An attempt to send in an Otyugh is quickly foiled by a well-timed Thunderstorm; but she takes down an incoming Wyrm with a quick command to her troops. A wall of fog suddenly covers the battlefield, and she mutters an expletitive to herself as she empowers the mercenary with a powerful physical force - no fog will negate his ungodly speed and search capabilities now. Another Otyugh lands down and chomps on the pesky Dragonfly, but the thunderstorms continue to harass her troops. She almost receives a blow, but the mercenary suddenly leaps towards her and takes the blow for her; in that movement is conveyed something familliar, but her thoughts are quickly distracted by the roar of a dragon; one of her own. Much to her frusration, the ambushing elemental suddenly leaps out of phase, no doubt a trick of the spiteful ether; but she simply summons more troops and waits for weaknesses. The first mercenary, her(?) mercenary manages to keep in pacing, punching where the elemental suddenly seems to phase back in to strike, meeting each attempted blow with a carefuly timed parry. In the end, she stands above the rascal, and collects her pay once more.
Her first real challenge begins here; she realizes now that the Grand Arena this town has been built around is not one to be trifled with and she must earn a reputation here if she wishes to move up in the world. The next battles are mindless; almost mechanical. She picks her targets carefully; there is no sense of honor here and she is more than aware she will not be called out on stomping out the weak; she'll simply be given less pay and a smaller chance at any gear or comrades to win over to her cause. Her Otyugh proves incessantly useful at swallowing up a storm of Antlion, Pegasi, and Photons poured out against her by a devout cleric she encounters next.
Then she sees the Immortal. The majestic warrior is cast out of the ether, it's shimmering armor representing the otherwordly protection from most sources of mortal harm. She could've cared less, but her opponent soon follows up by conjuring an illusion of the Otyugh she's happily fed, its massive figure now towering against her. She digustedly orders the illusion to be ripped to shreds. The Immortal gives a hesistant look of respect, but ultimately walks away with his fleeing master. She sticks her tongue out at his back while secretly commending his loyalty.
Another Spark-flinger catches her ire, this time wielding virulent energies of chaos as she tries to mind her own buisness. The chaotic warps time around here and suddenly vines are growing out of nowhere; she's not a fan of this lack of consistency. Her irritation starts turning into worry when her full charger is shocked back to quanta by a focused lightning bolt, and another Immortal steps out to challenge her - what was previously a crazed freak is now is moving with the precision of an Assassin. In a panic, she gives the command to her Mercenary, but even empowered with her speed he cannot dodge the precise shots of lightning; these movements are too certain, and before she knows it, she's forced to rally her forces to take down a warped Abomination and dodge a too convenient swing from her opponent's shiv.
She curses the fact that the shield she looted doesn't work on small fries. A healing incantation, a round-ish bird, and another Immortal push her to the corner - this is the first time she's forced an Armagio to make a tactical sacrifice, and her second one soon follows suit. In the confusion of raining metal and dust, she quickly plants her knife into her opponent's neck. It is over, but she barely won.
She decides to visit the Oracle for insight; her reptutation is large enough now that the clerics bow to her presence and let her in; though, they do that for any adventurer who's sprinkled a little blood around here. He offers at temporary Deja Vu to help her, as well as a vision that she will face Morte, should she dare face a False God. The rogue captain almost scoffs at the prospect, and leaves, but not before a spirit of the past offers to join her. She doesn't have the right kind of energies yet, but she accepts, nonetheless.
After her disturbing experience with the entropic assassin, she decides to pick on weaker targets once more. Her Mercenary gives her a concerned nod, but she ignores it and observes the maddened voodoo shaman she just encountered mutate her Charger into... an even bigger spiny fish*. She laughs at the enemy's poor luck; his command of the forces of gravity does him little when her own troops can move far faster.
(seriously, 4/5 charger into 10/6 Toadfish from mutate. AI dumb.)
Frustrated by the lack of strength, she decided to proceed back to finding stronger targets. She draws her knife rather quickly this time against the ether-blessed opponent, with her mercenary following suit as soon as they feel the strong gravitational waves in the area. Another wall of fog appears - her target is marked with Air's power, apparently, but she responds with a well-timed burst of momentum on her Mercenary. The Otyugh, on the other hand, receives an unfortunate lightning bolt to its mouth. A thunderstorm soon takes out her temporarily pet and fries her intentionally placed bait into oblivion, despite a healthy layering of plate armor.
She's in fairly good shape until yet another illusion occurs, targeting
her mercenary of all things, and a Wyrm swoops out of the sky ready to have her for a snack. A charger leaps in just in time to prevent such an embarrassing fate and she dryly wonders how many prayers it would take for a False God to bless her with a useful shield. She has no time ot worry, though, as an Azure Dragon suddenly charges onto the field, roaring over the Wyrm's corpse she just ordered her Armagio to strangle. She grants the Dragon's tamer a swift defeat before retreating once more - her stronger opponents really do leave her in need of better armaments.
Back to weaker targets then, she thinks in frustration. A copied Deja Vu is quickly eaten - twice, she might add - by one of her Otyughs; the destructive power of a butterfly could mean jack to her for all she cared at this point. While the Warden guarding the ruins is slightly more intimidating, she can't help but snark that when his leader is just some chaos wielder with a hammer, he must be pretty lame. A last-minute summon of a purple dragon becomes dinner, and the magical staff (an Eternity, she thinks)? soon drawn against her just meets the tip of her knife. She notices a Wyrm flying over ahead but at the last minute it leaps off to battle a random Psion in the distance. Confound it all!
She decides to humor a young man using a few Photons. His hammer's swing lacks strength, and his ability to channel quanta is anything but consistent. His Fire Spirit just ends up giving her Otyugh a spicy meal, and she doesn't stay long beyond a few generic words of encouragement at the end. The Bone Dragon was fairly likeable, though. A shame she couldn't recruit it.
Her next battle call is resounded to with...absolutely nothing. Fortunately, it seems like her opponent's creatures took their sweet time... or so she wished, as she just barely manages to block a Psion's next blow. Her Otyugh is struck down by a well-timed Mummy - it seems like she's not the only one in control of gravitational forces here.
And then he phases out. Bloody ethermages. She commands her troops to smash the Psion's face into the dirt, unleashes her momentum charms, and spitefully weighs down the Mummy with some plate armor. Her opponent continues to bite back, though - after chugging down a bottle of luceferin, he summons a Fallen Elf, which proceeds to anchor a Spark to reality by warping it into a chaotic abomination. She considers it rather fortunate that her Armagio ended up mutated into a hulking Shrieker...one that duplicated, no less. She wasn't asking how that one worked.
(seriously, 1/25 Armagio into 9/6 Shrieker with Deja Vu. +Momentum, gave me the match)
It almost seems like there would've been an eclipse tonight, but it seems like not even the weather will turn in her favor tonight. She counts her coins, and walks towards an inn...
