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totkdaily · 3 months

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Day 41: Trouble in Kakariko Village

At dawn, I head out again from Dueling Peaks Stable. It's a gorgeous morning.

As I ride up the hill I see Naydra flying almost out of the sunrise over the hills towards the peaks. Stunning.

I check the secluded area past the rocks up the hill for old times' sake - there used to be a monster camp there. But now it looks like this is where the Stable Trotters' Beetz is camped.

It's a beautiful outlook here, to be fair.

He's trying to summon bees. He wants honey to make Mastro some honey crepes to cheer him up. He needs three combs of courser bee honey - apparently there's a chasm near Kakariko Village and bees nearby - so why's he camped here, so far from the village? Oh. It's scary. Fair enough. I give him some of my honey and let him know the Stable Trotters are actually just down the hill.

In the pass between the hills, Addison again! How many signs can one guy build?

There are ruins right by the village entrance. Letty and Totsuna are investigating. They point to one down the hill, which apparently the Princess has forbidden entrance to. I sense shenanigans. Letty and Totsuna want to be part of the Zonai Survey Team, and they think pinching parts of the ruins for personal study is the way to go about it.

Garshon is riding out of town, and says we met at New Serenne Stable. He got sick of his brother's arguing about swords and beasts - ah, I remember! - and went off to explore caves and ruins himself. He's got a good memory for faces - it must be nearly a month since I saw him.

At the top of the village, Lasli is worried about her grandmother - and Claree, who runs the clothing shop. I remember her - I hope I have enough gems to trade for some sneaking clothes. Lasli's grandmother got too close to the Gloom and is sick.

The only thing she can eat is porridge made of hylian rice, fresh milk and wild greens - and Lasli needs a porridge that will cure gloom sickness. I have the sundelion I think will do the trick, but no rice and milk.

I'll come back. There used to be a grocery shop at the bottom of the hill.

Ruins have fallen on the house opposite the clothing shop. Wasn't that Dorian and his daughters' house? I hope they're alright!

Part of the ruin is being used as some kind of workshop - Wortsworth is here, from Lookout Landing. He's translated the tablet that landed at Lookout Landing - it reads:

"Once held in honor as 'hochmayde' (handmaid?) to King Rauru and Queen Sonia, thereafter to his sister and to Princess Zelda. Here on this great stone and twelve more 'withalle make y endite min time' with the royal family. So might 'heore' remembrance preserve for the sake of him on whom our hope rests."

The author says she wrote 13 stone tablets in total about the Royal family. I wonder if more of them will mention Zelda? Wortsworth reckons she's a chambermaid of some kind.

Wortsworth thinks Zelda's mention proves the name is as old as Hyrule - which is, I suppose, technically true. He'll reward me for pictures of any other stone tablets - though the translation will be reward enough for me.

I visit the clothing shop. 5000 rupees for the stealth chest guard?? I may not have enough gems after all. How can they be so much more expensive?

Claree is Lasli's older sister - ah. They want the money for their grandmother's treatment. That's fair enough, but I can't afford it. I might be able to gather the ingredients they need, though.

I just need to register the shrine here, and then I can nip back to Lookout Landing for the supplies I need.

I visit the Goddess statue for stamina first. Koko is selling ring garlands in the square - very sweet. She's grown since I saw her last.

Then I head to the Chief's House. Impa's away looking for geoglyphs, so who's running things here?

Dorian's guarding the Chief's House. He says Paya is in charge? Well, it's Lady Paya now. But the last time I saw her she could barely speak to anyone.

Dorian has been assisting her, for which I'm glad. But he says all she thinks about is the ring ruins. He asks me to speak to her, to try to remind her of her other duties.

I squelch through the rain to meet her - she's talking with Tauro. She doesn't seem confident in being chief… I suppose she had no choice when Impa left.

I have to tell her that the Princess is still missing. But Paya says she's seen her? Immediately after the Upheaval? She confirms what Letty and Totsuna said - the Princess has forbidden anyone to investigate one of the five ring ruins.

I can't imagine Zelda forbidding research. And it just doesn't make sense. Surely this is the imposter's work? She left suddenly once she'd delivered the instruction, which is a pattern I'm beginning to recognise from the imposter.

Paya and Tauro agree it doesn't make sense, but they say that the Princess must have had a reason, so we still can't go up there - annoying.

Calip of the Survey Team is guarding the ruins and won't let me even walk beneath them - does that mean people can't even visit the graves that lie beyond? That's unreasonable.

I think of Koko and her sister, and their mother's grave. Paya has to see sense.

In the Chief's House, I find a journal of anonymous worries. Someone only finds comfort sleeping on the stone slabs in the ring ruins - weird. Lasli wants to know how to cure Gloom sickness - I know why. Monsters have appeared at one of the ring ruins out west - Drenja from the Zonai Survey Team needs help. Trissa can't find where the cuccos are laying, so the stores and the village are running low. Cottla - sorry, Not Cottla - has found a secret base for her and her mother - presumably because she's not allowed to visit her mother's grave.

A litany of concerns and worries. All ignored. How could Impa abandon these people? How could Paya not see that they need her?

I find Purah's diary under Paya's bed - what's it doing there? She says she's hiding volumes of her diary around - she must have begun this before the Upheaval, I can't imagine she'd bother now. She writes that there's one in her own room. One at the Hateno Lab. One here. Where's the fourth?

Paya's Diary of a Chief is on the desk, so I read that too. She writes of the swiftness with which Impa made her chief and left her to it. Dorian was concerned but said nothing to stop it. She documents the Upheaval, the fall of the ring ruins and the opening of the chasm. It was after that that Impa left. She had been reading a book with eleven symbols - are there that many geoglyphs? Or is this something else?

She says the Zelda who visited was "like a doll of herself… the same outside, but no spirit within." The description chills me. Others have said that they've seen a cold, emotionless Zelda. Surely this is the imposter. The Princess I know has always been warmth personified.

Paya believes the village has been reinvigorated by the ring ruins, research and tourism. How can I make her see the truth? Her people need her.

I head back outside. Letty and Totsuna are sheltering from the rain in the inn. The guy behind the counter, Dai, briefly tries to charge me 10,000 rupees for a bed - but quickly reveals he doesn’t work here. The owner left to make up the Survey Team’s beds and hasn't come back. There’s four camp tents around the village, so he could be anywhere. If I see a sleepy guy, Dai asks me to send him back to the inn to take over. Fine.

Outside, I meet Bugut. He’s come to see the ring ruins, and specifically the stone slabs with writing on, but he’s deathly afraid of heights. I’ll get him some photos.

The weather clears at dusk. Trissa, in the produce store, says the old guys who stock it are busy driving off monsters - is this related to the call for help from the Zonai Survey Team I read in the Chief’s House? Probably - she says to head west to find them.

I climb the hill to start heading to the shrine, finally, and find the Southern Ring Ruin Research Camp - complete with journal by Cori. They’ve found sundelions here and are cultivating them in the plum orchard. They’ve also found a Device Dispenser, which baffles them but is very useful for me.

I take the scaffolding up the hill for a better gliding point to the shrine - and of course, by that point I might as well go and check out the ring ruins. Tauro’s left some translation notes from this ring:

“There were (those) known as sages...who protect(ed the kingdom) of Hyrule from the Demon King together (with) King (Rauru).”

Nothing new there. But I do wonder if the others contain any new information.

I glide down to the shrine, and spend the rest of the night solving it.

#totkdaily #day 41 #nice long one today - loads going on in Kakariko Village #totk #loz #zelda #legend of zelda

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hungnitan · 10 months

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Spoiler Fontaine Archon Quest 4.0 :

How should I put it, this archon quest somehow fresh and took different route than previous area which make it enjoyable. The writer putting jokes and high tension scene pretty well together.

Klutz Furina really funny to see hahahaha

Ace of attorney story like are interesting enough to read (lol)

The one really suprise me after read many spoiler, Arlecchino came from Fontaine ! Which explained house of hearth somehow lean on saving Fontaine aside their allignment. It would be suprised if Arlecchino join fatui, picking house of hearth and basically spying mission join as harbringer all because she know the propehcy will happens if she don't do something.

As I thought, Furina Neuvillete relationships more like cheeky young lady and all round butler so yeah Alois Claude (lol). It gonna be interesting to read Neuvillete Furina character story later to see the reasons they join together. I hoping like he's into controlling from shadow ruler type or Furina cheeky personality interest him (but seems not lol)

Aside the fact this archon quest focused on Navia, funny enough Neuvillete which had less line took most scene there (lol) and I guess we wouldn't see her for next archon quest since well... she finished her role, right (lol)

Neuvillete in this archon quest really interest me ! He's very rational kinda like machine but somehow he's still in research for human's hearts. And the things with rain, everytime rains happened, it's after a case or trials and at the end of archon quest when he's at Callus grave so yeah I guess Neuvillete is just someone can't express his feelings...

Aside the fact Tartaglia fanboying traveller and forgot his debt collector job (lol), it's funny he say about his families to us and forgotting our archenemy relationship.

The quest finished with Tartaglia arrested just because oracle saying he's guilty (he's guilty for taking too many female's hearts lol). But wow Neuvillete can stop him with only one move before going full foul legacy mode, I guess dragons pretty much a supernatural (lol)

I think Tartaglia will play a very big part in Fontaine archon quest, maybe as key person or just clown like Liyue (lol)

So far, Fontaine archon quest have three big forces play their parts : Fontaine, current house of hearth member + tartaglia + traveller and third forces. I really suspect these third forces came from previous house of hearth father, if so it explain new fatui enemies at 4.1.

So yeah it's very balanced story, not bad but not so good. But I still wondering how to do Fontaine 100% exploration with it's basically chasm underground + dessert mouseleum combination map. For now without touching any quest, I still around 30% overall and unlock most teleport waypoint while doing some chest

#genshin impact #archon quest #spoiler #i had a things with neuvillete jpn va #i rarely skip neuvillete dialogue before he finish (lol)#kamiyan score 10/10 for emperor like characters (lol)

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darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght · 5 months

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Chapter 8- Part 5

Well, I don’t want to go too far east yet, so let’s go up north- at least this way, we’ll probably reach a dead end due to that chasm, so we can say we’ve crossed this street off our list of new places to explore.

Oop, okay, here’s a new Trainer-

Yet again, Xera is just walking there, she is just standing there-

Togedemaru, huh? Alright, let’s send in Prong with the Mud-Slap!

The Togedemaru is using Rollout, but luckily it isn’t very damaging with the first hit.

Mud-Slap’s Accuracy drop should stop the Rollout from doing too much more- after all, Rollout by itself becomes less and less accurate the longer it goes on, so an Accuracy drop should heighten the odds of it missing!

Or…not. Okay, well, another Mud-Slap should remedy that-

IT’S STILL HAPPENING, THEY’RE STILL BEING LEFT WITH MINISCULE RED HEALTH-

Also, I had to use a Potion to get Prong’s health back up because Rollout is still hitting?? Somehow?? Whatever, just finish it with Bug Bite-

That Togedemaru managed to hit get a Rollout streak at, like, four times at the max before it finally missed- even at -2 Accuracy! If I tried to pull that off, my Pokémon wouldn’t be able to get above, like a streak of two, I guarantee it!

I thought the place went out of business because of earthquakes wrecking the ward? Eh, maybe it was just an additional set of circumstances.

Ah, there’s the Day Care- probably not gonna use it, but good to know where it is. But even more importantly…the Pokémon Center!! Let’s head in and heal and see what NPCs are inside!

Oh- wow, there are a LOT of people here, whoa.

Oh- that’s, uh…rough, lady. (The boyfriend’s totally dead, isn’t he?)

Again, probably not a natural occurrence, not at all! Probably a result of that “machine” the drunk guy talked about- whatever that is and whatever it did…

Sure, grandpa, I think Nurse Joy should get you back into bed now-

Okay like on one hand, I do feel like the plants would be removed if people had, like, Fire-types or stuff to cut down trees, but on the other hand…DID YOU NOT SEE THE GIANT CHASM RIGHT OUTSIDE??

Aw no, that’s terrible, lady! (The son’s totally dead, isn’t he?)

(Future edit: Actually, now that I think about it…didn’t we see the one kid just kinda by himself when we first came into Obsidia Ward? The one who was like “I’m scared”? Was that- was that him? Was that this lady’s missing son??)

Okay, seriously, I get that there isn’t much anyone can do about the buildings and streets being torn apart, but like- does no one around here have any Fire-types?? Where’s the Fire-type Gym Leader, call them in and maybe have them take out a few of the trees and vines!

(That won’t have any unintended consequences, surely- what’s a forest fire?)

#pokemon reborn #pokemon reborn spoilers #pokemon fan game #pokemon reborn screenshot let's play

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evelynmlewis · 8 months

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The Boy in the Castle: Chapter 7

Chapter 7

General Boris arrived the next morning.

Ilya found out when the soldier, called Sergey, came in that morning to bring him his bread and water.

Alexei did not appear that day.

Later, when Sergey came back for dinner, Ilya dared to ask a question.

“Is there any news from upstairs?” he ventured.

“Aye. You’re in trouble, coachman. Boris got out the lady’s paperwork. She’s got the royal seal all over everything. She was bound for Stosla, so we know where you were going.”

“Ah… what’s going to happen to her?”

“She was executed this morning just before noon. The General beheaded her and threw her body over the wall into the chasm.”

Somehow, though he’d anticipated it, the news still came like a cold shock. Ilya flinched. Poor woman. So that was the end of that feeble hope. He wondered if the boy knew. For a moment, then, he felt a stab of panic, wondering if the boy had been turned over among the documents that Anatoliy had surrendered, but quickly he reasoned there had been no mention of the child. If they had discovered him, surely Sergey would have mentioned it.

Still, he wasn’t sure what he could do to help the boy at this point. If Olga was dead, it surely wouldn’t be long until he was next.

But nothing happened. After Sergey left him, he sat alone for the rest of the day, and into the night, in growing dread, shifting uncomfortably with a twisting feeling in his stomach. The next time anyone came, it could well be the time for his execution. Boris was only busy, had better things to do than worry about some coachman, and he was left to try and make his peace.

It was some time during the night that the boy appeared.

Ilya hadn’t known that he’d been sleeping, but he startled awake to find the boy standing in front of him, illuminated a gold color in the orange glow of the flame.

“Alexei!” He clamped down on the volume of his voice, and hissed the word. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know.” The boy’s face was pale.

“You’ve got to—to find a way out of here. Go through the tunnels. If you ever did find a way to escape, do it now. If you didn’t—try exploring at the back of this cave. There’s got to be one that leads out of here.” Before, the boy had at least had his mother in the castle to stick around for. Now there was no reason to stay. There was no reason to assume Anatoliy’s protection was strong enough. It hadn’t saved Olga.

“I want you to escape too. I’m going to help you escape.” The boy’s teeth were gritted, his face was set in the most determined expression Ilya had ever seen, despite the tears starting from his eyes.

“Please. Don’t do anything dangerous.”

The most important thing was that he found some way to protect the child— if there was anything useful still that he could do with his life, it might be that. If only he could think of something. The child was innocent, indeed better than he was anyway, and more worth it.

“Don’t worry,” Alexei said. “I’ve already done it.”

“What? What have you done?”

“The doves. I let them go.”

He blinked in confusion.

“I got into the – the aviary. It’s at the top of the tower… above Anatoliy’s room. I didn’t have to – to open the door, I j-just climbed out the window and… up.”

Ilya’s eyes widened, genuinely impressed.

“I grabbed onto the stones. They are all uneven up there. I found the white doves we brought and I released some of them. They will fly to the King’s army straightaway. I had written a message telling them that we are captured by the rebels at Castle Tyrna. Then I climbed back down.”

“Didn’t anyone see you climbing on the outside?”

“I – I don’t think so. It was early morning, before the sun came up.”

Before the execution. Before he found out. Ilya felt pity for the boy, but he also felt almost a bit relieved. Was that truly his entire plan? It was a touching thought, and at least the boy had been successful.

“It is a miracle,” said Ilya, “that you weren’t apprehended.” He paused, since the boy was already on the verge of tears. “It was very brave. And now the King’s army will find out where we are.”

Though they wouldn’t come to the rescue. There wasn’t enough time. Not for him. He would be killed before they arrived. But maybe for the boy, he thought, desperately.

“Don’t try anything else like that. Just try to escape through the rock. Please.”

He waited for an answer, but received none.

“Please, just go now.”

Alexei didn’t move, just kept standing there. The silence surprised him for a moment, until he realized that it was a glazed look, a kind of stupor. The boy’s eyes stared past him, into some distance beyond the walls of the cave. Perhaps his words hadn’t even been heard.

Ilya did not repeat his instructions.

Slowly, the boy fell to his knees, and crawled toward him, beginning to weep with great, desperate sobs, until he had fully curled up into Ilya’s side, and continued weeping. Ilya slowly, uncertainly, put his arm around him, like he was afraid to crush the child. Eventually, however, he was forced to relax. Soon he would really have to send the boy away. There was no sense in letting him be discovered. But just for a moment, for this moment, he could be of some comfort.

#writing #my writing #salt and light #original fiction

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talenlee · 1 year

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How To Be: Samus Aran (In 4e D&D)

In How To Be we’re going to look at a variety of characters from Not D&D and conceptualise how you might go about making a version of that character in the form of D&D that matters on this blog, D&D 4th Edition. Our guidelines are as follows:

This is going to be a brief rundown of ways to make a character that ‘feels’ like the source character

This isn’t meant to be comprehensive or authoritative but as a creative exercise

While not every character can work immediately out of the box, the aim is to make sure they have a character ‘feel’ as soon as possible

The character has to have the ‘feeling’ of the character by at least midway through Heroic

When building characters in 4th Edition it’s worth remembering that there are a lot of different ways to do the same basic thing. This isn’t going to be comprehensive, or even particularly fleshed out, and instead give you some places to start when you want to make something.

Another thing to remember is that 4e characters tend to be more about collected interactions of groups of things – it’s not that you get a build with specific rules about what you have to take, and when, and why, like you’re lockpicking your way through a design in the hopes of getting an overlap eventually. Character building is about packages, not programs, and we’ll talk about some packages and reference them going forwards.

Really gotta specify that ‘in 4e D&D’ on this one.

When we talk about How To Be, the point has always been to take characters that are interesting in some particular way then see how we can carry that vibe into the creative space of 4th Edition D&D. What we’ve seen, when we try and make things like a real-world-alike gangster or a robot dinosaur, is that there are some concepts that seem very easy to translate into the play space that really aren’t. Zelgadis is a D&D character and he was very challenging to translate to the game just because he’d already been filtered through another set of different game rules. Minfilia showed us that when a character leaves large parts of their method and ideology as blank slates, there’s a challenge creating something in the space that fulfills that character.

Extremely defined and extremely vague characters, in both directions, are hard.

Anyway, let’s look at Samus Aran.

Examining Samus aran

Samus Aran is a great big tough, heavily armoured lady walking around with basically a tank on her shoulders, a gun for an arm, and a basket of tricks that just happen to make exploring and moving really fun and engaging. She’s also one of the longstanding combat characters in the videogame Super Smash Bros, which adds a complication of being a game that’s already about translating Samus from one form to another and in the process present just the way the character feels.

Samus has a lot of different ways to apply her guns, with bolts, missiles, charged up beams, freezy beams, waves that travel through barriers, bombs, bigger bombs, bigger missiles, and probably some other stuff I forgot from one of the games or other. Essentially, ‘has and uses gun’ is a lot of what she does, which tends to look like ranged attacks. Ranged attacks and big dump-truck tough armour aren’t a common overlap in D&D.

In some iterations (mostly Smash Bros), she’s also got a whip or some form of lash ability that gives her short-ranged melee attacks that nonetheless let her huck people around. This iteration is also the Zero Suit look, which eschews the heavy armour in favour of jet boot high heels.

Across a huge number of games, though, Samus cooks down to being extremely mobile, with the ability to turn into a little ball and roll through tubes, jump very far and across chasms, and even eventually, kinda-fly with screw attacks.

All told, that gives us this list:

Highly mobile

Shoots things

Doesn’t die

Heavily armoured

Badass

The Unified Samus Theory

… Okay, we’re screwed on this one.

The list of Samus Aran traits we have is a little bit like one of those ‘pick two’ triangles, where you can have cheap, fast or strong. Heavy armour works against mobility. Mobility tends to be paired with melee damage, not ranged damage. Ranged damage tends to not work with heavy armour.

What this means is there’s no real overlap between all the options here. Instead, these Samus Arans are all going to be bespoke.

Samus The Snake

First up, let’s look at Samus Aran as a combination of infiltrator and damage dealer. Armoured or not, Samus can very much be a high-femme high-heels wearing run-and-gunner who has an armoured suit for most of the time, but without it, is still basically a stealth game protagonist who can best the space pirates with ingenuity and wits. In this context, the most important part of what Samus does is kill people in the face with her laser weapon, even if sometimes that laser weapon is letting her charge people shoulder-first or even sneak through their ductwork as a ball or a person.

This version of Samus goes where she wants and deals a lot of damage. This build also avoids a conversation about whether Samus is strong or charismatic by instead forwarding that her most important stat is her wisdom. Pick a target and chase it down, like a bounty hunter does.

Here’s the problem: Avengers don’t favour heavy armour. In fact they have a lot of things that benefit from not being armoured, including an armour bonus that makes your armour class almost as good as wearing heavy armour you’d have to spend feats on. This build definitely gets you the reliable, hostile and agile Samus Aran, but the armour, the power suit, lacks substance.

I think this build is only going to be satisfying if you’re looking at the Zero Suit Samus as a default, and want to play with that aesthetic. The lack of heavy, chunky armour feels like it’s a hard stop for the idea, and that’s okay! But it’s also the simplest version of the character and the version I’d recommend you pick up to start with. This blasty build would do things like pull enemies away from the tank to deal with them one-on-one, leaping away and keeping them chasing you. Very in keeping with how Samus plays, but it doesn’t play how she feels like she should play, right?

Samus The Tank

Gunna level with you, there’s a Samus from twenty years ago that the current Samus evolved out of and she’s a very different person. She’s big and strong and green haired and makes promo videos of herself. The personality of the quiet, introspective stoic Samus Aran we’re used to now, complete with the blonde hair, beauty spot and Zero Suit, is pretty much not evident here even if this character is also equally the work of fanfiction distributed by Nintendo Power.

On the other hand, in terms of play experience, it’s hard to look at a seven foot tall woman wearing heavy metal armour and not think of her as being tough by definition. Samus can be seen as a deadly opponent (because of all the killing) but she can just as much be seen as someone who endures enormously difficult circumstances to protect other people from the threat she’s in a position to stop. Basically, there’s a tankiness to the idea of Samus Aran. With Metroid: Dread adding more blatant melee combat finishers, and Smash Bros presenting us with more of Samus’ physicality, it’s very possible you have a long history of thinking of Samus in terms of who she can beat up.

(And then the Zero Suit version gets involved there too and it’s complicated all of a sudden.)

If you want to do this kind of Samus, you have options that can range from the simple to the weird, but I’d start with the Paladin as my baseline. Talk to your GM about it, since she by definition doesn’t have a hand free (because of the gun) and this is just a question of how it looks. Treat the armoured fists of the suit as a hammer, and play a melee Paladin who smashes things very hard. There is of course, one little wrinkle here, because uh…

It’s kind of hard to neglect the gun. The question becomes ‘how do you make a mostly-melee character who still wants a ranged attack?’ And how do you make that ranged attack good? Ranged attacks can open you up to attacks of opportunity, and that’s bad.

The solution gets a little ugly. The two best options I found for getting a shooty beam on the melee paladin Samus are both multiclass-like:

Use the half-elf to pick up a Warlock blast like Eldritch Blast that uses your constitution or Charisma, depending on your type of Paladin. Eventually, you can use Razordark Bracers to protect yourself from the attacks of opportunity.

Multiclass Battlemind with the feat Awakened Potential. Then, power swap one of your at-will powers for Concussive Strike, which is a blast 3 that provides meaningful utility and provokes no attacks of opportunity.

Another option, which means you shoot less often but do shoot well is to take a Cavalier, and to treat her Righteous Radiance as blasting people who get close. This build can also spend powers choices to pick up the big splashy daily beam powers, like Radiant Delirium. This kind of split attacking does mean you’ll need to improve her Charisma as well as her strength, but it’s the best way to do it all if your thinking of Samus is as a physically impressive, tough shooter.

Samus The Samusn’t

In Metroid Fusion, we’re treated to the presence of the SA-X, a pile of goo made out of a shapeshifting monster that wants to be Samus Aran. It stomps around after you for most of the game, stalking the original Samus in the look of her original design, and eventually, after being fought and defeated, winds up teaming up with you (and sacrificing itself) to fight the most dreadful of Metroids you’ve met(roid) so far. This Samus Aran has ranged attacking powers, a dreadful melee threat, and can shapeshift into a monstrous form that controls the space around her by slapping you around and shooting you.

That’s right.

This is a druid build.

I’m not just doing this because I want to talk about a druid build. I’m also doing this because I love character who are the monster that wants to be a person. The fountain of blood in the shape of a girl. The Samus Aran that is trying very hard to be Samus Aran because being Samus Aran feels good. I love that stuff!

First up, the druid. Druids can wear bulky armour (hide, but you know, it’s not bad), and make ranged attacks in a humanoid form. Then they can shapeshift into a beast form that makes melee attacks to control enemies. By default, they start out pretty tough (12 hit points, 5 hp a level, 7 healing surges, the top standard for controllers), and their ability to corral a single target makes them pretty safe from day 1. They also get elemental blast powers, like Chill Wind, that lets you shove enemies around and pick where they stand (and allies too, really).

Druids can benefit from picking up powersets that care about distributing slows, or about forced movement, which tend to blossom as you advance in the levels. The Alfsair spear, available very cheaply, lets you use spear feats on your attacks in both beast and human form, which can include polearm feats and oh look who put Polearm Momentum in here? Even if you don’t want to multiclass fighter for the Most Stolen Feat Chain, you could look into using Savage Rend and proning tools to make ‘sitting on the enemy’ your job.

Basically, a druid build can be a single opponent’s boss monster.

Junk Drawer

The challenge of needing ranged attacks, heavy armour and high mobility are very much in your ‘pick two’ category of character building. I did look at and reject a lot of almosts and not-quites, with the Warlock lacking the toughness, Sorcerer/Paladin hybrids lacking coherence, and the elegance of the Battlemind crashing into the limits of a class that doesn’t quite work at range despite having powers that want to keep you there.

Samus is a really awkward character to love because almost everyone who loves her tends to love different versions of her, different ideas of her, and most of them are doing so without any want to diminish other people’s (but…). She’s iconic, but like all icons, she’s been reduced at scale and distance to make sure that whatever she is, it doesn’t hurt your imagination of what she is or should be.

Because we did that once and it sucked.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DungeonsDragons #Games #Making #DnD4E #HowToBe

#DnD 4e #How to Be

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actualaster · 1 year

Text

Plot spoilers

Okay, taking a break from exploring everything (got all the depths and most of the shrines, still a bunch of Sages wills to go), enhancing gear, side quests, etc. to touch the main story again.

(I got so involved with the gameplay lol)

Yunobo, dude, the fuck happened to you???

...Fake Zelda lady, eh? Yiga connection, or something else? Like since I did another quest first I know that is NOT our Zelda, but I wonder who she is.

Wait hold on, back to a different quest for a second

Oh man, Deku tree looks terrible. Oh there's a CHASM INSIDE IT. Thankfully I was prepared because I HATE THOSE BAD TOUCH MONSTERS.

Oof, looks like it hurt trying to pull the Master Sword out of the Light Dragon. BUT ALSO. ZELDA REFERRING TO THE SWORS AS "SHE". YES. YES YES YES.

And it's almost 8am oops I should sleep

#kage plays games #kage plays totk #totk spoilers #kage plays loz

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pearlywritings · 2 years

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Oh, can I get little peak of your Dainsleif x former lady-in-waiting reader fic? It's very rare of people to write about him (and write good) so I'm very intrigued at what you're cooking there?

Also, I relate to you about having many fics to finish. Since I speak two languages, I have plans to write in my native one too, so now I feel like I'm in a tango.

I am gonna be honest...

I haven't touched the first (not in a chronological sense but in a storywise sense) fic for him in TWO MONTHS and I am 90% sure when I open it I am gonna just straight up start editing cause time passed and now I don't like certain things about it.

But I can give the main idea: it's right after the quest with him in Chasm (and if you played it, you should know what happened and in what condition the man is) and, basically, reader, being a fellow Khaenri'ahn and having experienced the same thing, is not having it and convinces Dain to go to [...] for a small vacation, because in such state there is no use trying to chase the Abyss Order if only he doesn't want to end up more hurt. Of course, exploring the nature of their relationship along the way.

As for having many fics - my brain comes up with ideas much faster than I can tend to them, so I just write them down and occasionally work on this or that, depending on what my mood strikes for at the moment.

#✨asks

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hematomes · 2 years

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Hello! I was wondering if I could ask you a Genshin question:

My lumenstone in Genshin is on level 4. I need to upgrade it for the current mud event, but the lady who was in the chasm that helped me upgrade it is gone…I’m not sure how to level up my stone. Do you know how to upgrade the lumenstone even after I’ve finished all the chasm quests?

hi sweets!! so jinwu, the girl you're talking abt, moves around the chasm with the rest of the expedition, since their goal is to explore the entire chasm

if you're done with the exploration quest, she's here

if she isn't, look around your map, you should find her!!

#— answered #— nonnie

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anabsolutefreak · 1 month

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Chapter 19: Songs of the Underdark

This is a canon adjacent full campaign based story involving my original TAV character, the full BG3 crew and, of course, our favorite undead high elf. I created this story to help me get through an exceptionally difficult time in my life and so, you might notice Tav's story is a little more atypical than some. Be advised that the story I have created has some mature themes including violence, kink, mental health and self harm. I will be placing warnings on each individual chapter when any of these themes are included so please be aware. I hope you enjoy. Summary: Embrae and her friends journey into the Underdark and meet the Myconids. Astarion tries to find something worthwhile to hunt in the new, dangerous environment. When he returns, he learns a little more about the odd half-elf. Embrae admits that she would like to be something more than friends with benefits but is the elf even capable of that kind of relationship? MATURE CONTENT: References to trauma. Attempted sexual assault.

Whenever Embrae had imagined the Underdark, she had thought of a dank, dark cave, full of stalactites and stalagmites, and of bats hiding on the ceiling waiting to swoop down upon unwary adventurers. The Underdark, as it turned out, defied all her expectations. Firstly it wasn’t, well, all that dark… Every surface of the subterranean caverns seemed to glow with internal lights of all colors: solemn blue, misty white, poison green, and even hot pink. And the size of it was awe-inspiring. Standing atop the gate of the temple where they had first found themselves, she could see strange, glowing mushrooms, the infrastructure of what she thought might be a settlement or a village, a lake, and even mountains in the distance. Mountains underground, she thought. As they explored, she also noticed chasms that dropped farther still and she shuddered. Just how far down could it go? Embrae realized that she could barely see the ceiling in places; it was so far above them, that she could see only darkness, interrupted here and there by massive spikes or soft iridescent glowing fungi. How far down were they? She looked down and saw a river trickling down and even farther into the darkness of a chasm and shivered. How far down does it go?

The music here is otherworldly. Unlike the surface, the subtle music she often heard was not so easily pushed to the background. It was a dissonant, whisper, a melody, a perfect harmony, and a funeral dirge, all at once, and yet, she couldn’t hope to compare it to any of those things. It was beautiful, haunting, and awful. She wanted it to stop and yet, she also wanted to lay still on the cold floor and drink it in.

“You know, all my years as a creature of the night,” said Astarion conversationally, “and I’ve never once ventured into the Underdark… it's not exactly a luxurious setting but it definitely has its upsides for a vampire… still, I do miss the sun already.”

“You’ve only just come to tolerate the sun and you’re already reminiscing?” snapped Lae’zel.

“Nature’s beauty shines even deep beneath the surface,” rumbled Halsin. “But we must be wary. All manner of hungry creatures wait for us here.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” breathed Shadowheart. She closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Lady Shar guide me.”

Embrae pointed at the miniatures running headlong towards the gate where they still stood. “Halsin, are those by chance some of the hungry creatures you mentioned?” Even from where they were, Embrae could hear the ground rumble as they approached, calling out in a guttural shriek as they charged the gate… only to be felled immediately when a wicked beam of pale blue light shot from one of the many tall pillars surrounding the temple. Looking closer, she noticed that corpses of other minitaurs lined the path towards the gate… “I guess they’re not very bright…”

“Alas, some of nature's creatures have much in the way of hunger, and little in the way of brains,” the large druid sighed.

“Well, I say, that’s at least one problem solved for us,” chimed in Gale. “But perhaps were should find a erm, less direct path, lest we join them.”

“There’s a ledge leading down that direction,” said Wyll, pointing to their left. We’ll have to be careful, but it should keep us out of the path of those beams.”

Embrae squinted. Even with her dark vision, she had trouble spotting the ledge the human pointed out. She looked thoughtfully at the one-eyes human.“Impressive eyesight Wyll.”

“Yeah, one of the few benefits of being dragged through all of the fires of Avernus… My last eye seems to work better than ever."

They were quiet as they eased their way down to the ledge towards the path below. The anxiety rippled through her and her companions was palpable, thought Embrae. Again, she wondered if they had made the right choice. How easy it would be to get lost down here!

A voice stopped them all in their tracks as they finally reached level ground. We are here. Others are coming, always coming.

“Please tell me you all heard that,” groaned Embrae. The music was becoming almost unbearable. She rubbed a palm to her forehead.

“Oh yeah, we heard it.” Karlach cracked her knuckles nervously. “Halsin you sure about this Myconid Colony?”

“Hmm. They are our best option for gaining directions. It is their domain after all. They aren’t known to be aggressive… but that doesn’t mean they're safe, either. We could also seek help from the Duergar, however, they aren’t renowned for being friendly towards outsiders.

“Hmph,” scoffed Astarion. “That’s an understatement. As I hear it, subterranean dwarves are even less friendly than my unpredictable cousins, the drow.”

“I’ve heard the same,” said Shadowheart. “Go to them and we might end up with our heads on a pike.”

“And that would be a pity,” said Astarion. “My head looks rather better attached to the rest of me.”

Embrae sighed. She and Astarion had been ignoring each other for the better part of the day. In fact, the elf had been remarkably silent— now, it seemed nerves had gotten the better of him. She shot a brief glance his way and immediately regretted it. The subtle lights of the Underdark played across his pale skin, accentuating the angles of his cheekbones and heightening his already otherworldly beauty. His mouth was slightly open as he thought and his fangs seemed almost longer— sharper. Here, he looked as much like a creature of the night as she’d ever seen him. Her stomach turned and her heart did a little flip as she looked away. “Let’s go find the Myconids.”

***

They continued down the path and found the bodies of Dreugar as well as the strange twisting shapes of what must have been the Myconids they sought, scattered about the path. “Clearly, they’re not overly fond of one another,” she muttered.

The path split ahead. To the left, it led further down, towards the abandoned-looking village she had noted earlier. The other led straight towards a cluster of green mushrooms and beyond that an overlapping mass of shelf fungi that seemed to form something like a structure that seemed to exude a warm, comforting light. “Blibberbang,” observed Halsin. “Don’t get too close or they’ll— well— go bang.”

“At a guess, I’d say the mushroom people are living over there,” said Embrae pointing past the blibberbang field.

They made their way around the blibberbangs and, as they did, Embrae became sure that they were headed the right way. The music wasn’t just loud now, it was overwhelming. Her senses were so filled with it, that she could scarcely concentrate. And she could see— images, strange, barely humanoid shapes that jutted and curved in uncanny ways, their hands overstretched over the corpses of a small woman— a gnome, she realized. They were the source of the singing, she was sure of it. Surely the others could hear this! She looked over towards her companions but besides the mild worry covering all of their faces, they seemed normal. Gale caught her gaze and gave her a look of concern.

“Are you alright, Embrae? You look— unwell.”

“I’m fine—” she wasn’t but she didn’t want to talk about it. Gale frowned. Behind him. Astarion raised an eyebrow.

They approached the shelf fungi. Now that they were nearer, she realized that they formed a sort of staircase. And at the top of the staircase, a tall myconid that seemed to radiate every color of the Underdark stared down at them. They are here, as foretold. A deep voice in her head said. It extended an arm towards her and her head felt as though it might burst with the mournful music pounding inside her skull. She saw a vision then, of the myconid creatures weaving their fungal spores over her corpse. Was it threatening her? She shivered. She focused on the song, trying to understand its meaning. It was them, their way of communicating— and it spoke so loudly— of loss. She opened her eyes. They had suffered a recent tragedy, she realized, and they were afraid.

“Something terrible has happened here, hasn’t it?”The Myconid, the Sovereign she realized, hummed in response, considering her with an eyeless gaze.

“We seek shelter and knowledge of the paths through the Underdark. I promise we don’t mean you any harm. But perhaps we can help,”

The song changed, becoming lighter, almost hopeful as he stared at her. “Follow then, and be welcome, distant kin.” he sang.

***

Embrae's normally olive-toned skin looked pale, nearly gray and she’d had a perpetual grimace on her face since that had only deepened as they made their way further into the Underdark. I am not worrying about that. He scolded himself.

“So, you want us to murder a group of Druegar for you?” asked Embrae skeptically.”

“It’s a touch genocidal as these things go but I’m game,” quipped Astarion.

She shot him a look that might’ve killed him were he not already dead. Still angry, he realized. Well, to hells with her.

the Myconid leader seemed to sigh in response. They butchered my people and killed our young. The rot must be cleansed… and you shall be rewarded.

“Why did they attack you?” Asked Embrae.

We harbor a fugitive. A deep gnome. They search for her. He gestured towards the writhing form of a gnome woman.

Embrae frowned and kneeled next to the woman. “What’s happened to you?” She asked.

“Poisoned—” she gasped. “Drow—-”

Well, ***

Embrae’s normally olive-toned face looked pale, nearly gray and she’d had a perpetual grimace on her face since that had only deepened as they made their way further into the Underdark. I am not worrying about that. He scolded himself.

“So, you want us to murder a group of Druegar for you?” asked Embrae skeptically.”

“It’s a touch genocidal as these things go but I’m game,” quipped Astarion.

She shot him a look that might’ve killed him were he not already dead. Still angry, he realized. Well, to hells with her.

the Myconid leader seemed to sigh in response. They butchered my people and killed our young. The rot must be cleansed… and you shall be rewarded.

“Why did they attack you?” Asked Embrae.

We harbor a fugitive. A deep gnome. They search for her. He gestured towards the writhing form of a gnome woman.

Embrae frowned and kneeled next to the woman. “What’s happened to you?” She asked.

“Poisoned—” she gasped. “Drow—-”

Well, the Drow did love their poisons, thought Astarion… something he’d always admired about his dark cousins.

The Drow leads the attack— we would have his head. The myconids eery voice sang.

An image of a sour-faced drow with straight white hair flashed into Astarion’s head and Embrae’s grimace deepened. Astarion had heard the myconids singing when they spoke to them, that strange, mournful song, but she seemed to be much more affected by it than the rest of the party. he thought about what she had said in the woods when she was still talking to him. She could hear music everywhere, she had said. Perhaps this was a tad overwhelming to the strange half-elf. Not that he cared, he reminded himself again.

“Shadowheart,” she said nodding towards the small woman.

The cleric kneeled beside the woman and held her hands over her. They glowed with restorative light and the gnome gasped, color returning to her small face. “The pain—” she said, “it’s gone.”

The Myconids seemed to hum in appreciation as they watched the small woman stand.

“I’m Thulla,” said the woman. “You have my thanks. But he is right. The Druegar are a blight. They’ve taken my family, my friends as slaves at the Grymforge… Them and that damned drow, Nere.” She spat his name and Astarion’s skin prickled uncomfortably. he was familiar with that venom.

Embrae scowled in disgust. “The Druegar keep slaves?” She asked. Oh, darling, he wanted to tell her. Slaves are a time-honored custom here in the Underdark. Besides, they are only gnomes. Still, he kept his eyes away from the small woman. The look in her eye and the whole situation was making him feel uncomfortable.

“Bloody slavers,” growled Karlach, echoing his own thoughts. “Underdark’s full of them. Still, I don’t know how I feel about murdering the Druegar in cold blood— or as close to that as I get.”

“You’re seeking passage through the Underdark,” said Thulla. “No one knows it better than the deep gnomes— but you won’t make it to the Grymforge without a fight. The only way there is with one of their boats and they’ll kill you before they let you use them.”

Emrbrae sighed. “We need to rest and eat. It was a long climb down… thank you, for your hospitality. We will set up camp nearby. My companions and I need to think about your requests.” She looked earnestly at Tulla. “I want to help you,” she said. “But odds are even if I provoke a fight with your slavers, a lot of you are going to end up dead. Are you ready for that kind of fight?”

Tulla nodded, grimly. “We’re better off dead than enslaved to those vile beasts.

***

Hunting alone seemed a more dangerous prospect in the Underdark, however, several days without blood and even longer without the blood of a thinking creature had rendered the familiar ache in Astarion’s stomach almost agonizing. He had been so used to feeding regularly, he realized, that he found it more difficult to go without.

Stalking out of the camp quietly, so as not to wake the others, he waited until he could no longer hear the beating hearts of his companions before beginning the hunt. The vampire tried to let his body tune to the uncanny vast darkness before him; he opened his senses to the sounds and scents, giving himself over to instinct. Unfamiliar whispers and movements in the dark came from everywhere. He had known the Underdark to be full of dangerous, predatory things; but he had never considered that it might be positively teeming with life. Of course, it was difficult to say whether his intended prey might end up tearing him to shreds instead of granting him a meal.

At one point, Astarion paused when the ground beneath him quite literally trembled and quaked. He stood completely still, unbreathing. He wasn’t the only predator in search of sustenance tonight. He’d read stories of the Bulette, a subterranean beast that burrowed in the very floor beneath in search of unwary prey. That, he didn’t want to tangle with. If he didn’t move, it would hopefully move on. Eventually, the quaking passed and he continued his hunt.

Several minutes later, he heard a low growl ahead of him. Gleaming yellow eyes stared at him from the darkness, assessing him. The creature was about as large as a bear, and in fact, it might have been a sort of bear; it stood on all fours and had thick fur that appeared greyish to him in the dim light. He crouched and the creature snarled. He should perhaps search for something more— bite-sized, thought the vampire. However, even as he thought it, his mind turned to Embrae and her sweet neck and his stomach clenched in wanton pain. No, he needed to eat, and soon. The strange animal began to back away from him. Despite their relative size, it seemed the thing had decided he was a danger… and it was correct. He leaped across the space between and followed the hunger, right to where he hoped the beast's throat was.

***

He stumbled back to camp, bruised and scratched in several places, but giddy. The beast, whatever it had been, now lay drained and lifeless in the dark, and he was positively awash with the warmth of its blood. The fullness in his stomach and the coursing of blood in his undead veins made him feel almost drunk. Of course, it was nothing compared to her he mourned… but at least he wouldn’t accidentally drink anyone in their sleep tonight.

He wasn’t ready to trance, so he sat near the low fire, looking at its smoldering embers and letting his blood-dazed mind wander. His eyes wandered to Embrae. The half-elf lay in her bedroll across from him, tossing and turning, her lovely face twisted in what might have been pain.

They hadn’t spoken really since the night before after they had had sex. Her face full of concern hurt, and eventually fury appeared over and over again in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to banish it. He knew he had hurt her and, try as he might, he couldn’t stand it. He didn’t even know what had happened, he thought hazily. It had been fine, he thought— more than fine, at first, actually, he admitted to himself. He had enjoyed it. Usually engaged in intimate acts with his targets, he felt nothing but numb and detached. He’d had to. After all, he’d had a thousand lovers but none of them were truly his, only his master’s. But with her, he couldn’t help but feel, something. No that wasn’t right— he felt too many things. Emotions and sensations he had not thought himself capable of experiencing raced through him as he held her, as he moved inside her and each fought for dominion in his dead heart. But foremost amongst them when they were done had been disgust and fear. He could feel them, all of their hands over the last two hundred years clawing at him, yearning for him, accusing him as they bit, fucked, and dragged him back into the darkness. And when she’d tried to touch him— He put his head in his hands. What the hells was he doing? he wondered.

Even now as he watched her, he wanted to touch her— to hold her and yet the very thought of doing so made him freeze with abject terror. This game he had been playing, for she was right— he had been playing with her, had fallen apart somewhere along the way. It was real, he realized. But he wasn’t capable of real… Was he?

Embrae’s cry jerked him out of his thought, a low, drawn-out wail, that made his freshly-won blood run cold. Should he wake her? He made his way over to her, quiet, careful, much like the night he had tried and failed to feed on her without her knowledge.

“Please stop,” she whispered in her sleep. She turned onto her side and curled into a defensive ball.

He reached out a hand but hesitated, unsure. Then, without warning, his tadpole convulsed and he was in a familiar alleyway, pressed up against a wall by a tall, dark-haired man with reeking breath.

“Please stop,” whimpered Embrae.

“Come on little songbird,” chortled the man drunkenly. “Don’t be that way. I know what you want— a woman don’t spend all night teasing and singing in a place like that unless she’s looking for company.” He bent down and tried to kiss her. As his wet lips pressed against hers, she hit him hard. The man yelled out in surprise, pain, and anger and slapped her across the face, knocking her to the dirty stones beneath. “You little bitch,” he said. He got down onto the ground and climbed on top of her, pinning her against the ground. She couldn’t breathe, could hardly move as he began to tear at her clothing. Fear lanced through her as the man laughed, and then rage turned her vision red. She found the dagger in her boot and managed to plunge it into his side. She felt the warm blood flowing over her, turning cool as he rolled off her, cursing and spitting profanities at her as he pressed his hand to his bleeding side. She stood over him. The wound wasn’t fatal, but she could fix that. “You want to hear me sing, you bastard?” Her voice was soft now, melodic. The dream pulsed and faded then came back into clarity. When it did, the man lay on his side alive but still, looking ahead sightlessly as the blood from his wound pooled beside him. Embrae turned and ran. The music was too much. Sounds from the Underdark, the music of the myconids tore through her brain, consuming her.

Astarion found himself kneeling next to her as the tadpole finally stilled. Embrae was still asleep but it clearly wasn’t over for her. Tears streamed down her face and her limbs fought against the confines of her bedroll. Decided, he reached out and shook her. “Embrae,” he said her name softly and prepared to jump backward just in case the dream traveled with her. “Wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered open, darting around in confusion before they rested on his face. “Astarion. God, I’m sorry, it’s the fucking noise down here. It’s like it’s amplifying my nightmares.” Her chin quivered and she took a deep breath as though gathering herself. “Did I wake you?” She asked it calmly, as though this was just one of many such nightmares, and yet he saw tears pricking at the edges of her eyes. He resisted the ridiculous urge to reach out to her and sat back leaning against his hands.

“No, I was awake. I erm—” He paused. Should he tell her what she saw? Perhaps she would see it as a huge breach of privacy, accidental though it was.

She sat up and realization dawned in her hazel eyes as they locked onto his. “Oh— I see. I thought I felt less— alone.”

“It was completely involuntary. I promise.” He looked away. He didn’t want her to be angry at him— well angrier. Gods damn it! He wished he didn’t care as much as he did.

To her surprise, however, the half-elf snorted and a wry humor spread across her face. “I’m getting used to a certain lack of privacy in our little gang of freaks. I know I’ve had to make several concentrated efforts to avoid being pulled into your head.”

“Have you now?”

“Yes…” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “You know, I think it’s more so for us than the others. I had wondered— how common is it for a vampire or a spawn to feed regularly off of one person?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it. To my knowledge, it’s virtually unheard of. Vampires tend to either kill or turn you whilst spawn can only feed on what their master deems appropriate.” He shook his head to dislodge the image of a stinking rat. “Are you saying you think it’s created a link between us?”

“I’m not saying anything, really. It was only idle speculation.” As she said it, sadness and worry crept back into her expression.

They sat silently, awkwardly. Unspoken tensions from the other night and still more unsayable truths hovered between them, leaving an uncomfortable charge in the air around them.

“So,” said Astarion, conversationally. “Why do you so avoid my head then? Afraid of what you might find?”

“Well, it’s true, I have nightmares enough of my own without 200 years worth of yours invading.” She chuckled grimly. “But really, I dislike invading someone else's mind.”

“Your dream,” he said as the realization hit him. She had possessed some sort of psychic ability long before the tadpoles, something her captor had forced her to use to their benefit. He felt a wave of pity. Well, they were more alike than he realized, it seemed.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Lithishim, my boss— for lack of a better word—- liked to make deals, much like Raphael… She used me to make her targets more— pliable, I suppose. Generally, I could use music, singing, to that end— I would enter their minds subtly, determine what it is they wanted, and tailor a song just for them. When they were at their most vulnerable, Lithishim would swoop in and close on whatever deal it was.”

“Is Lithishim a Devil, then?” He asked.

I call her a devil. I thought, based on what little I knew that that’s what she was. But the more I learn about them, the more I don’t think that’s right… She’s cunning, to be sure but a bit too— chaotic, too impulsive… And she seems pretty disinterested in souls. Most of her deals seemed to gain her power of some sort or another but sometimes, I swear, she just liked to watch mortals squirm.

Astarion thought about that. It was true; Raphael seemed methodical and decidedly sane in his approach to domination in a way.

“So— then what do you think she is?”

“I’m not sure. But she reminded me of— well— the hag.”

Astarion’s eyes widened in shock. “A Fae?” he breathed. If she was right, she might well prefer to have a devil on her back. By in large, the pure fae from which elves descended had retreated into another plane of chaotic existence… Those who chose to interact with mortals were decidedly more dangerous and unpredictable than a mere devil, by all accounts.

“Maybe. I wasn’t privy to the details of most of her deals, so I don’t know if she ever got her hands on any firstborns but, I don’t know— she has a wildness about her, for sure.”

“It’s the reason you won’t sing,” isn’t it.

She nodded. “The real problem with the power is that it’s hard not to want to use.” She scowled. “And now this tadpole gives me more of the same, and here I am using it anyways.”

“And why shouldn’t you?” Asked Astarion.

“What?”

“Look, take it from someone who spent a very long time under someone else’s power; take advantage of whatever you have. Because if you don’t, you’ll end up as someone's game piece, just as you and I have already been.”

“I don’t know Astarion. Sometimes I think lust for power can imprison someone just as easily as free them.”

He rolled his eyes and scoffed. So naive, he thought. “That is ridiculous.”

“You might be right,” she laughed. “Well, whatever I choose to do with it, I guess I’m just glad it’s on my own terms now.”

“That’s the spirit.” He grinned at her. Perhaps he could make her see reason yet. It wouldn’t do, alone in the wilderness, hunted by Absolute cultists, minions of his old master, and now Githyanki, to pull their punches. And besides, he thought to himself, at the end of their little journey, perhaps they would find what gave this so-called absolute its godlike power. Perhaps, they too would find use for it.

“Astarion?” She asked.

He snapped out of his fantasizing. “Hmm?”

“What happened the other night?”

Gods, not this. He opened his mouth to lie, to manipulate her into thinking she had misread the whole situation, that she had overreacted. But what came out of his treacherous mouth was, “I’m— not sure.”

“Alright,” she said. “Was it something I said, something I did?”

Gods below. “Darling, no.” Fine then, the truth, as he knew it at least. “I spent two centuries enslaved and tortured by a brutal vampire lord. I try not to think about it and yet—” He closed his eyes. He had assumed that freedom would be the balm to heal him from his time with his old master. Instead, freedom had pulled him out of his numbness and into an unfamiliar and terrifying reality. He could hear the same ringing in his words as he admitted. “I don’t feel that I’ve escaped him at all, sometimes… And it was that feeling the other night, after we—.” He groaned. Words, usually so easy for him when they were lies, stumbled and quaked when directed towards truth. “Look, I don’t know. Would it help if I said I was sorry?”

She didn’t reply for a minute. His eyes were still shut and he could hear only Embrae’s breathing and her beating heart. “Do we— mean anything to you?” She asked.

His eyes snapped open and he stared at her. No, not this. Why did she have to ask him this? “What do you mean?” He asked, knowing damned well what she meant.

“I do forgive you,” she said. “And I promise it’s OK if the answer is no. You were clear about it being just— fun.” Her voice was light but she couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Look— I wanted to have fun too. And I thought that it could just be that— that we could just be friends with— well, you know. But now…” Her face was red and she looked away.

“Now what?” He kept his voice teasing, although he felt anything but lighthearted. “Now you want to know if I’m ready to profess my, quite literally, undying love for you?”

“No!” she said flushing furiously. “Nothing like that!” She whirled around and fixed him with an accusing stare. “You know, you aren’t making this any easier.”

He laughed, despite himself. She was utterly adorable when she was flustered. “I apologize. Please, continue.”

“Look, I enjoy being around you… And while I enjoy— that— as well, I don’t think I want to continue our— late night escapades— not the way we have been, I mean.”

She had lost him. “Well, what other way is there?”

“As something— more— I guess… I’d like for us to try being something more.” She met his eyes. Hers were brimming with sincerity and fear. She was bearing her soul to him, he realized. His dead heart contracted as she continued hastily. “If you don’t want to— it’s fine. I don’t want to lose you as a friend, either, Astarion.”

If you don’t want to. As always, she gave him a choice. He appreciated that more than he’d ever been able to express and yet, he didn’t know what to do with the choices sometimes. What did he want? He felt lost, as though he were drowning in those hazel irises. Did he want to surface? Was he capable of more?

“I— I would think that maybe you had other candidates for um, more.” He felt a wave of misery just saying it and another of regret as he watched her face fall. “I’m not saying no,” he said quickly. “I just thought perhaps, you might want to try someone— someone else.” Less broken, less weak, he finished in his head.

Her eyes turned warm and her face broke into a sweet grin. “Nah,” she laughed. “Of all the freaks in this camp, you’re the only one I’m interested in more with.”

“What, why?” he blurted out. He backpedaled. He needed to regain control— control of himself, the situation, the conversation. “Well, naturally, I could see why. We have had a lot of fun together…”

She stayed quiet, waiting for his answer. And to his surprise, amid his chaotic thoughts, he did have an answer for her.

“I— we could try I suppose.” He smiled at her. “Very well, darling. If you’re sure about this, then consider yourself well and truly taken.”

Well, this has turned out to be a surprisingly delightful conversation. His delight shifted to misgiving though as he considered the implications. Would she expect something tonight? “Well, darling, did you want to celebrate our um, declaration?”

She flushed again and laughed. “Tempting— but I was thinking, what if we do it right this time? Actually, take some time to get to know one another for a bit before we throw ourselves at each other again?”

What an odd creature, she was. His whole body relaxed at the very idea of ‘taking things slow.’ What a novel concept. Still, Astarion affected a disappointed pout.

“Well, I suppose if you must. There is something to be said for delayed gratification— or so I’m told.”

#astarion fanfic #original female character #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 tav #baldurs gate astarion #slow burn #astarion smut

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officialbobbarker · 2 months

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Prologue: The Search

An excerpt from a story I've been dabbling at. It starts with a flashback of a character searching for someone, and then ambiguously hints they might have passed. During the rest of the story, the reader is unsure whether the quarry is alive or dead.

In the remote regions of the North, nestled in a valley deep in the mountains, lies the village of Marquette. Very small and relatively unknown to all but the most experienced travelers, snowfall blocks all roads to the area for nearly half the year. A fjord provides fishermen in the area with means for self sufficiency and with a water route to the greater Bastian Sea, though that route is very rarely used. The entrance to the fjord is narrow, making it inaccessible to all but the smallest watercraft. Shan-Dow, a larger port on the Bastian Sea many miles south, provides sufficient supply of fish and trade to the outside world, making the trip to Marquette unnecessary to most. The village is almost entirely isolated from the outside world.

But like many quiet places in the world, Marquette was significant to all who lived there, and significant to me, once I made the complicated journey to it. Marquette is not where my story begins, but it is where it seemingly ended. Or, to be more accurate, it’s a few miles southeast of where it ended.

Although I found the town pleasant enough, Marquette would have remained wholly inconsequential to my story were it not for the large natural hot spring that lies three and a half miles northwest of the village. A deep-running chasm in the earth’s crust heats a stream as it travels down a wooded mountainside. The pools at the bottom of the mountain are the only real reason Marquette gets visitors at all.

The woods surrounding the pools are paradisaical. Tall pines provide shelter from wind while being spaced far enough apart to let in sunlight. The undergrowth seems to grow inexplicably without thorns or briars. The pine needles and mulch are surprisingly soft underfoot, and walking barefoot here seems more natural than anywhere else. The springs keep the air comfortably warm through the snowy winter months. Animals here are skittish due to the rarity of visitors, but it’s not uncommon to catch a glimpse of a hare, woodpecker, doe, or even a massive bull moose visiting the spring from time to time.

The springs themselves are pristine. Clear mountain water pools in small stone basins at regular intervals along the stream. The water is the perfect temperature: warm, and not so hot that you couldn’t lounge for hours. Most importantly, if you ever do make the trek up to them, you’ll likely have the pools to yourself.

The area around the pools is said to be closer to the spiritual realm than the rest of the world, which couldn’t help but believe. I’ve never had much time for spirits (who does now-adays?) and other than the occasional will-o-the-wisp, they’ve never bothered to make themselves known to me. Usually I prefer it this way, but while I explored the lower mountainside around the pools, a feeling and energy were constantly present: this was not like any other place. I kept my eyes peeled for wisps, ghoul-lights, jackalopes and every other fantasy I’d heard of.

One spirit is known to everyone in the area, and this apparition is also the easiest to find. If you travel up the stream, the landscape grows harsher, the pools grow hotter, and majestic views of the valley and bay that house the village become visible. At the very top of the stream, just before the trail leading to the mountain summit, sits “The Pool of the Lady.” You may have heard it referred to as “The Lady’s Bathtub” (the more common name among outsiders). Even if you’ve never heard these names, you’ve most certainly heard of this pool. Marquette is an older village than most people realize, and the story of the spring dates back farther than we have written record of.

The story will sound familiar to you. Once every moon, during the full moon, a beautiful woman emerges from the spring to bathe. Her hair is said to be a rich, dark brown that falls nearly to her knees. Her eyes change color, depending on who is telling the story. But all storytellers agree that they look as if they could see directly into your soul. Her lips are light pink and full. She moves like a branch in the wind.

The only name given to her is by the first inhabitants of the valley, “Nizhoni.” Beautiful.

Although locals insist she bears no ill will towards mortals, her pool is supposed to be littered with the corpses of any who hoped to catch a glimpse of the spirit. Taken with her beauty, they join her in the pool and swim with her until their muscles fail from exhaustion and they join the hosts below. I’ve been told that all similar legends; sirens, succubi, naiads, and temptresses, are corruptions of her. I thought this was merely a bit of local pride, until I heard the theory corroborated by a scholar as far south as Huddington.

The purpose of my trip north was not to catch a glimpse of Nizhoni, though she is important to my story. I was in search of one of her visitors. Her last confirmed visitor, in fact. I was in pursuit of a man who’s story had taken me hundreds of miles and months of research to sort out. After following a tip from a deckhand in Bourlon, I found myself at Marquette’s only inn, chatting with the bartender.

“Aye, I remember him.” He looked over my head as he spoke, as if he had to think hard on my question. Or maybe he was looking to the door, hoping for a customer who would order more expensive drinks. I was sipping on a cheap ale and the bar was completely empty except for the two of us.

“He must have come through, 4... 5 seasons back.” I wasn’t surprised that the bartender remembered back that far. A place like this would only get a handful of outsiders each year. “I remember because he looked like a scholar type, and they always come in summer when the universities let out. So I thought it was weird he would show up so late in the season.”

“Did he seem weird in other ways?” I prodded carefully.

“Not really, to tell you the truth.” He looked directly at me for a second with a glance that seemed almost apologetic, then looked back to the door. “We get his type now and then in the summer. Students who want to tell their friends they saw the Lady or professors thinking they can study something like her.” He picked up a glass and began polishing it to keep his hands busy. I sat silently for a second and contemplated excusing myself. It was clear the bartender had more on his mind. I was glad I didn’t, as moments later, the bartender seemed to decide there was no chance of another customer coming into the sparse taphouse, and he might as well enjoy gossiping about a stranger. He placed down the glass and gave me his full attention as he continued.

“I guess it was weird how sincere he seemed about seeing her... even out of town folks will usually know to show up at the wrong time of the month.”

“That way they can go up without worrying about seeing her and drowning themselves in her pool. She only comes out at the full moon, so just come at the wrong time of the month and there’s no risk. Most won’t even make the trek up to her pool, just lounge around in the lower pools. When they go back to university they’ll tell everyone how lovely she is and how hard it was to escape, but they never even saw her. It’s been a while since we’ve had a crazy like your friend who actually drowned himself up there.”

“So he did drown himself then?” I was crestfallen, but partially relieved. My work was almost over.

“Almost definitely, if he really went up there.” The bartender pulled a face that was meant to be sympathetic, but clearly said he didn’t have much sympathy to share with ignorant tourists. “I didn’t see him come back through the town at least. The full moon was last week, so if you really want to, you could probably hike up and see his body, it’d still be there. Just don’t try to get it out of the spring, and don’t take any of the stuff people have left by the side, even if it did belong to your friend. People like to leave it up there. Kind of a gift, a shrine really, to the Lady. You won’t get much kindness around here if we find out you’ve been taking her stuff.” He fixed me with a stern look.

“Of course,” I said quickly. My appearance must have declined more than I realized recently if I looked like I would pilfer a mass grave. “He was just a friend. I’m looking into what happened to him for his family,” I lied.

The bartender returned his attention to the door and polishing his glass, satisfied with my answer. “He had a family? That’s too bad. Sad what a girl will push people to do.” He said this with a finality that told me this was all he had to say.

I pulled out a small notebook and flipped through it. A year of travels, wasted, just like that. I looked back through my notes, until I realized what the bartender had just said. I got his attention again, which wasn’t hard, as I was still the only one in the room.

“Sorry, did you say a girl pushed him to go to the spring? You mean the Lady, right?”

“The Lady?” The bartender put down his glass and laughed loudly. “The Lady is not a girl, she’s a spirit.” He shook his head as if to say ‘look at this stupid outsider.'

I stared blankly back, I didn’t really see the distinction. “But, you mentioned a girl...”

“There was a girl too. Didn’t I say that? Not with him, but he kept talking about her. She wasn’t in the bar with him, so I don’t know anything about her other than what he said.”

“What did he say about her?” I pulled out a pen, ready to take notes. Would someone searching for a friend take notes like this? Probably not, but the bartender didn’t seem to care.

“The usual heartbroken lover stuff. At first it seemed like she had rejected him, because he was all broken up about her. But the drunker he got... I’m not sure, he might have rejected her.” The bartender scratched his chin, thoughtfully, then shrugged.

“Did he describe what she looked like?”

“No, other than drunk ramblings about her beauty and fine features and all that. He wanted to forget about her, so he went to the springs. Not a bad choice I guess. At least the Lady makes the pain quick.”

“And you didn’t see the girl before or after he left?”

“She didn’t come in here at least, or I would have given her a piece of my mind for driving the poor lad to death like that. But this is the only inn in town, so I would have seen her if she went anywhere.”

I sat in silence for a few minutes, thinking through the new information. The bartender went back to polishing glasses, and he whistled quietly while he worked. What to do about the girl? My quarry was almost certainly dead, but I had been instructed to close all leads.

I dropped a few extra coins on the bar and stood up abruptly. “I should go confirm that he went up there so I can tell his folks. I’ll be careful not to touch anything. Thanks again.”

The bartender grunted and nodded to me, sweeping the coins into a small purse and already watching the door again. The off season for travelers must be rough on the inn. I shouldered my pack and walked out of the dim barroom into the early afternoon light. I squinted a bit as I collected my bearings and headed northwest.

#writing

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