Herzinth

Post Your Moon Moon memes

That was never a meme that had much room for expansion. If you've seen one derpy wolf/husky pic, you've seen them all.

Legend of Renalta 2: Reborn

Abida Qisaf + Kasim Ambilus Intermission

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As the last patches of daylight left the training yard, Abida ceased her self-induced training to rest upon a nearby barrel. Normally she would have continued training into the night, but her head was spinning and stomach roiling after constant practice at her newfound abilities. The ability to magically dash through the air was proving useful, especially for reaching high places, but left her feeling sick.

She had left her sword resting a few feet away. She began to reach for it, but a wave of dizziness forced her to stop and be content with simply sitting for the time being.

Kasim walked through the training yard as the sun set, as he often did to see what others were up to and to point out their failures and one-up them if he was capable, and he spotted a rather unusual sight. People running around was normal, but zipping from one place to another without seeming to go through the intervening space? That was odd. He watched for a while, until the teleporting person sat on the ground and seemed ready to be sick all over herself.

“You look like you’re about to throw up.” Kasim strode over to the seated person with his hands in his pockets, a mocking smirk on his face. “The teleporting trick you’ve got is interesting, but it seems to have a major drawback.”

Seeing a pair of feet stop in front of her, Abida looked up towards the smirking human. “As such things should,” she responded. “Without limits is without order.” Looking the man over, she realized that she recognized him. “You are another Queen’s Blade, are you not? I believe I saw you at Arian.”

“Oh, you’re part of the group too, huh? I didn’t recognize you. Guess you went somewhere other than the eastern watch tower.” Kasim shrugged, dismissing his own minor failing. “I’ve always figured the best kind of power is the kind without any limits, the kind you hear about in some of the better stories. You know, the stuff that could destroy the world if it got into the wrong hands. Limits are annoying.”

“It was limitless power than slaughtered the Imperium and created the Blood Sea.” She looked intently at the human and his easy confidence. “Would you truly desire that sort of power? Knowing that a single rash act could end everything?”

Kasim waved a hand dismissively. “That was one of those times it got into the wrong hands, obviously. My hands are right, and righteous as well, which is a bonus for everyone else. I’d love to get a hold of that kind of power.” He grinned and held his hands out to the sides, palms up, posing in what he thought of as a heroic manner. “I’d deal with all the demonic stuff in one go, and I’d be the hero who saved the world. A better question is why wouldn’t I want that kind of power.”

As the man extended his arms, Abida noted the hands of an archer and fighter. “Because you are not familiar with power,” she said. “I can hear the accent of one born in the Free Holds in your voice, and your hands are too calloused for you to be master. You served there, and now you serve here. The right hands for such power are those that command instead of obey. Those are not your hands.”

Kasim’s expression soured at the talk of serving, and by the time the elven woman finished her spiel he was scowling at her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s not serving if I choose to do it. I chose to join the Blades, I’m no slave, not any more, not ever again. My hands are better than any fool who thinks he’s got a right to command. I’m exactly the right person to hold power because I know what weakness is, and what it means to be held under someone else’s power.” By the end of his own spiel, Kasim was nearly shouting. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, though he still glared at the woman. “Who are you, anyway? I can tell you were a slave too.”

“I am Abida, and you are right in recognizing me as slave. Though unlike yourself, I do not deny that I still am one.” Feeling steadier, she rose to her feet to talk to the man eye to eye. “You choose to serve, but I imagine disobedience would still be met with punishment. So what has changed, truly, between when you were called a slave and where you are now?”

“If punishment is all that determines servitude, even the people who seem to be in control are slaves. Slavers who make a contract and break it are punished for doing so, but they aren’t called a slave for it.” Kasim made a sound of disgust, something between a sigh and a snort. “You’ve got a messed up notion of servitude, and no wonder if you’ve been in chains long enough to be pleased by them. I knew plenty like you before Xixis and his army came and gave me a chance to free myself. There were many people who saw their slavery as their destiny or whatever. You’ve just given up and lost sight of what being free means, or maybe you were born into slavery and never knew the meaning, never figured it out for yourself like I did. You wouldn’t be asking these foolish questions if you weren’t too blinded by your own servitude to see past it.”

“I am not pleased by servitude,” she said sharply, “but for every person who makes their own way, for each person who obeys themselves above all else, there is conflict. There is how they want the world, and how another wants the world. If obedience is the cost for order… for simplicity, then I shall obey.” She looked the man over, brow furrowed. “I am not one to tear apart the world around me for my own desires.”

“Order.” Kasim said the word with a sneer. “Order is when the strong enslave the weak and think themselves heroes for it, because everyone is shoved into neat little boxes instead of doing as they like. Order is no better than chaos, no worse, it’s just one side of the coin. Putting a higher price on one side of the copper over the other is the height of foolishness.” He took another deep breath, and his voice came out closer to a neutral tone this time. “Good and evil are what matter, not whether the world is neat and tidy or a jumbled mess, and slavery is evil. Whether or not you’re happy about it, if you support it you’re no better than the demons we’re trying to fight off.”

Turning away, Abida went to pick up her sword and sling it over her shoulder. “Our enemy is chaos incarnate,” she said, looking back. “You would do well to think on what side you belong to.”

“You would do well to actually think, since you don’t seem to be doing much of it.” The heat was back in Kasim’s voice, though not so pronounced as when he’d been shouting. “They’re chaotic, but more importantly they’re evil. You recall those gods that Queen Kouri and her companions banished? They were orderly, but they were also evil. The evil is what matters, not the order or chaos, and you’re a damned fool if you think otherwise.”

“Countless gods, each with their own practices, each fighting over followers,” She was beginning to become aggravated by the aggressiveness of the mans words, though fought to keep her own voice calm. “To me, that does not speak of order.”

Kasim rolled his eyes. “They were each trying to enforce their own kind of order on the people of the world. Just because none of them succeeded doesn’t mean they weren’t fighting for order. That’s just more proof that there’s not a whole lot of difference between order and chaos, as far as I’m concerned.”

The archer sighed and shook his head dramatically. “I don’t know why I’m bothering to talk about important matters with someone like you. You’re obviously thick-headed and stuck in the world of whatever your masters told you to keep you compliant. I may as well talk to a wall for all the good this is doing.”

“There are several quality walls around us,” she said, gesturing. “I hope they provide you with scintillating conversation, for I myself shall be leaving.” With that she turned away once more and began to walk from the training yard.

“Good. I hope you throw up next time you do your little teleporting trick. It’ll serve you right for being such a sickening person.” Kasim wheeled round and walked the opposite direction, back the way he’d come from. He would normally throw some extra parting shot over his shoulder, but he was too angry to be witty at the moment.

Legend of Renalta 2: Reborn

So Word of God is to write off the southern half of the world instead. Let's do this, people!

Ragnarok Redo; Now with less (more?) failure!

Cora Soto

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Cora pulled away from the woman's grasping hand as it tried to latch onto her arm. "Stop- Stop trying to grab me. I'm trying to find the damn open button." Kicking the elevator paneling in frustration, she began running her fingers over the buttons. Not knowing braille, it wasn't very helpful. She began to think that she might need to resort to just hitting random buttons.

As she went to press one, a thought crossed her mind that caused her to stop and kick the wall again. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her cellphone and hit the power button.

Legend of Renalta 2: Reborn

But really:

Renalta*: I guess it's our base of operations. Plus angels. Mostly the angels. Bases of operations can move.

Imperium: They're all supposed to be dead anyway. Bloody cheaters. And Eternal Soul Gem? Sounds like they want more not-death. Hackerz.

Rheinfield*: Dat holy magic bro

Liveria*: Dat monster hunting bro

Goblin Holds: Eh. Jumpy upstarts and a shifty sounding task from the goblin guy. One mage is worth less than any country.

Free Holds*: Actual 100% demon presence. Cheap manpower.

Underdark: Mechanists are pretty sweet. They're also pretty hidden and impossible to find.

Tuleria: Eh. Liveria has a port. Let distant and important NPC's go that way.

Amazons*: Kinda seems to have the direst consequences. Plus blood magic is always fun.

Legend of Renalta 2: Reborn

Well, since others are giving their opinions, I'll weigh in on what missions I think we should take and which we should abandon based on this initial info. In descending order of what I feel is most important to take down to least important:

Renalta, Underdark, Amazons, Rheinfeld, and Liveria are the ones I think we should take. Goblin Holds, Free Holds, Imperium, and Tuleria seem like ones we should abandon for the moment.

Also here's my reasoning for those choices and that particular ranking, in a hider because it's kinda long.

Explanations

For those I think we should take, first off Renalta feels like a no brainer must take situation. Letting Renalta get screwed over when it's supposed to be the core of the fight against the demons seems ludicrous to me, as does the idea of not getting angels on our side for the whole demon fighting thing, especially if there's a fucking archangel involved as Tempest said.

Letting the Underdark fall to the demons sounds like an awful idea. If there's awesome and powerful stuff down there that could empower the demons, and they have tunnels leading everywhere that the demons could use to invade without much warning, I feel like we should secure the Underdark to prevent that. Seriously, letting demons have underground paths to every other country is a baaaaaaaaaad idea.

Saving the Amazons sounds like a good idea to me, simply because losing the entire freaking civilization is a hell of a price to pay. They're supposed to be cool warriors, and letting demons frolic in the blood river might lead to bad shit. Oh, and if there's an entity that can destroy an entire bloody civilization over there, if we don't stop it now then it'll probably move on to try to fuck up other places. Best to deal with it now, imo.

Rheinfeld seems like a solid one to help, because all that anti-magic and experienced military folks would be really nice to have, plus the proximity to Renalta makes it a key place to hold.

And then I guess helping Liveria would be a good idea. Again, proximity to Renalta makes it a solid choice for protection, but they've got a nice long history of fighting dark and nasty creatures so their experience in that area would be nice to have on our side.

The first of the four I'd like to see us abandon is the Goblin Holds. It seems to me that other missions offer better long term rewards or have more dire immediate consequences for not taking them. It'd be nice to have Xixis and his dudes helping us, and Kasim has good in character reasons for wanting to take it, but I can't help but see the above five as more important.

The Free Holds don't seem like too bad a place to lose. Most of their military might comes from mercenaries, as I recall, and they're kind of a desert shit hole that's far off from Renalta. Honestly the only reason I rank it above the following two in importance is because it's actually got demonic shit happening now that we know of for sure, because of the succubus involved, so dealing with that demonic threat would be a nice start. If it were a non-demonic threat involved this would probably be ranked of lowest importance for me.

Tuleria kind of feels like a throwaway place to me, to be honest. Sure, it's a port to the rest of the world, but so what? They have those three NPCs who might be cool and powerful and stuff, but so what? Saving other places seem to offer more concrete benefits (like angels, anti-magic users, military might, keeping dangerous things out of demon hands, etc) and abandoning the Tuleria mission doesn't seem like it'll have as dire of results as other abandoned missions (like losing entire civilizations or losing powerful anti-demon resources). Seems the assassination going down will just throw Tuleria into civil war, which I think might be the second least severe of the potential penalties for abandoning a mission.

The Imperium doesn't sound extraordinarily helpful against demonic stuff. They recently got their shit slapped by the Free Holds using mercenaries and magic-based combat. I have a feeling that the invading legions of demons will be equal to (but probably better than) Free Holds mercenaries and will use plenty of combat magic as well. What use will the crusty old Imperium nerds be against demons if they got whooped by the Free Holds? I think the answer is "very little" or "none." I dunno what they've got going on for cool powerful NPC guys, but it sounds like their military isn't very well suited to the coming war so screw them. Also there does not seem to be any immediately obvious dire consequence to not taking the mission. Sure they'll be upset that we didn't help, and they probably won't get the soul gem thing, but an upset and gemless Imperium sounds far preferable to, well, every other obvious consequence for abandoning the other missions.

Gates of the Mire

let's get kinda hype

Gates of the Mire

Nymona stumbled back towards the hole she had fallen from, thick roots pressing into her back. Before her, a collection of robed strangers moved around the crumbling hall in utter silence. The waves caused by their shuffling feet washed over the lip of Nymona's alcove, running over her bare feet. Her rags and weapons from before were gone, as well as the wicker doll. A dream? she wondered. Though if that had been a dream, then how had she gotten down here among these people? If it was a dream, why hadn't she woken back in her woods, back in her isolated solace?

She hunched down amidst the roots, exaggerating her already short frame. As she stared at the others wide-eyed, the roots caught and toyed with her hair, hard brown and soft black intermixing. She had already been seen by at least one of them, so there was no point in hiding. Still, she wished the roots would grow over her and shadow her away.

One of the figures, a woman in grey robes began to arm herself as the others moved towards the end of the hall. "Who are you?" She asked in a high voice, "where are you all going?"

Legend of Renalta 2: Reborn

Throwing your own players under the bus. Wow Brovo, how could you.

also thanks for the future revive

Legend of Renalta 2: Reborn

Brovo said I wouldn't offer it if I didn't think it'd be fine.

WELL IN THAT CASE

I need either Sarzu to bring me back to life, for people to try the lake thing, or GM intervention. Mangled!Thailen ahoy.

I'll level up once I've got a confirmed way of bringing her back.