[LP CYOA] Epic

[TOME]

If Sekhenun intents to betray us, the more we wait the more time she has to prepare. And the more she prepares the more we feel betrayed by her when we confort her. Now she is in our power and we can hopefully intimidate her to back down, before the betrayal grows too big and we go raging and devouring all in our path because of that.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

A

 

[Baltika9]

If Sekhenun intents to betray us, the more we wait the more time she has to prepare. And the more she prepares the more we feel betrayed by her when we confort her. Now she is in our power and we can hopefully intimidate her to back down, before the betrayal grows too big and we go raging and devouring all in our path because of that.

Or, we go all berserk on her and devour the one with all the contacts and master plans, information and scientific expertise. Not to mention, that's another point to giving into our hunger, and that can;t be good.
Trust me, I'm all for pressing her against the wall and getting the information out tooth-by-tooth if we have to, but the repercussions are too great to do that. And even if she does survive, she'll definitely betray us, or at least never work with us again, because she can't trust us anymore. We must show restraint here. I'm for abandoning honor before reason, but not common fucking sense.

 

[Tigranes]

I can't imagine that someone like Sekhenun wouldn't have a contingency plan in case we tried something funny. Think about it - from her perspective, the prospect of us turning on her is an even more likely and dangerous one, than the other way round. After all, for Sekhenun, all her great plans rely on us; for us, we can always walk away and get involved in things another way.

I don't mind intimidating her and reminding her we aren't to be fucked with, but it's delicate - it's not like we haven't made things difficult for her in the past. Push her too far and it will make her determined to deceive / betray us, and cut off a great source of information. I think if we want to make sure we aren't taken up the posterior later on, we don't do it by 'frightening' Sekhenun into loyal submission (heh, yeah right), we do it by (1) maintaining good relations with her, and (2) building up some resources of our own. We need allies of our own, troops of our own, information sources of our own, for that inevitable day when we can no longer cooperate. Gudersu is a good start, but building up our own rapport with Edem also seems reasonable.

treave, will B still make her take out the tracker? I'd think that's the bare minimum whatever we choose.

 

[Baltika9]

treave, will B still make her take out the tracker? I'd think that's the bare minimum whatever we choose.

treave: I second this. Trust is a two way street. We're meeting her halfway. The other half is up to her. And if she refuses, we'll know where we stand.

 

[Arpad]

B

 

[Collage]

B as long as she takes out the tracker.

 

[Azira]

Going Hulk sounds tittilating, but ultimately, my vote has to be B

 

[Quetzacoatl]

B

 

[Baltika9]

You give a devilish grin, and return a push of your own, sending his head slamming into the wooden wall. Gamilsin's fear-stricken face opens its mouth to scream for help, but you choke his yell into a gurgle by driving your foot into his throat. You were going to slit his throat. But he deserves a worse death. How strange it is, you think, that one so ugly would be so... appetizing. As he struggles to his knees, you knock him back to the ground with a brutal blow to his head. He coughs and tries to speak, though only wheezing noises come out. The feared head of the priests of torture can only back away from you slowly. So fearful. So helpless.

Such a… thing… such an ugly thing. How could I permit it to live? You feel the knots binding you loosen. You drop your façade. Nusku senses your disappearance, and turns to look at you. His eyes widen as he sees you are still there – unbound. Just what you wanted; you want him to look you in the eyes before you devour him. Nusku fumbles with his belt, trying to draw out his dagger, but you move far faster and crush his hand in your grip. He screams. You slam your fist into his body, knocking him to the ground. Straddling him, you begin to rain down blows upon his head. Blood and dark goo spatters your fists. The stunned Gieloth has no time to focus for his psychic attacks. Instead, he croaks out to Edem for help. No help comes.

Edem stands at a safe distance, watching the murder of his compatriot with no expression on his face.

You do not care. You rip into Nusku, savoring the sensation of the squirming black tendrils between your fingers, and you eat.
When you finish, you realize Edem is nowhere to be found.

These rages, "berserkergang" notwithstanding, are beginning to alarm me. If we're going to let our hunger get the best of us every time we get angry, then that is not a comforting thought. It can lead to very uncomfortable circumstances, say we see another child dragged off into the corner in broad daylight and lose control of ourselves. Or, during combat, like we did at Daedalus' place:

It would not be like you to wait. You burst from the room. There is only one guard there, his sword raised against a fallen Daedalus. Your appearance catches the guard by total surprise. With one swift thrust, your fist slams into the man’s unguarded neck. As he stumbles back, you leap upon him and push him back against the wall.
Suddenly, you are so, so hungry.
Before you know what you are doing, you have sunk your teeth into his throat. The taste of his flesh and blood is like nectar. You gulp down your first bite greedily, and then go for a second. And another.
The fifth bite completely satiates your hunger, and you throw down the lifeless man, his face ripped apart by your teeth.

and then, where will we be? Ean is doing it "bad men" so far, but how much time this "eating bad people for Great Justice" has before our hunger subverts our morals to include more and more petty crimes into that category?

Worst part is, we can't stop feeding now, or we stand no chance of defeating Marduk, and the cradle of civilization is screwed. I've a feeling that my suggestion of going Buddha for a couple decades will be more a matter of necessity then lulz with this. That is why getting angry with Sekhenun and intimidating her into giving us information is a bad idea.
treave: How about controlling emotions while feeding, can Ean at lest do that? Or try to?
Bros, what do you think? Am I worrying for nothing?

 

[Helly]

B

 

[Baltika9]

“If you do this for my children, you are one of us, Ean,” says Gudersu suddenly. His voice drops, threateningly, as he glares daggers at Edem and Nusku. “And we will get you back.”

And on a final note, I think we've just been married off. We might want to think twice about the repercussions.
I'm pretty sure that the next time we see her, Itani will be straddling our lap at the least, and if we "dishonor" Gudersu's daughter, either by sex or refusal, we just might lose the gutians as quickly as we won them.

 

[m4davis]

B

 

[ScubaV]

I really want to choose A because I'm not sure when we'll get another chance. But I agree that we need to get a handle on this hunger rage. It seems to be an extremely powerful tool, but only if we can control it. B

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Thoughts...
The way I see it, bros, there are a few short-term (relatively) priorities we've got so far:

1. Cure or at least learn to control our hunger. - Sek is probably the only one willing to help us on this and it may tie into her own goals of curing her people.
2. Kill Marduk.
3. Kill and/or pacify the immortal "gods" of Greece. (Hopefully either Marduk will help with this or vice versa...)
4. Continue to seek allies.
5. Reforge the weapon Sek told us about. It sounded like Anbar-Shi on steroids. Should help us with 2&3. We'll probably need Sek for this.
6. Learn light manipulation. Treave mentioned this earlier. It'd make us a near perfect assassin. Almost completely undetectable.
7. Identify and deal with new threats as they come.

Whatever comes our way next. We might want to consider these when making our choices.

In this case, threatening Sek might help us with 7... Unless she's not a threat...and we kill and eat her or she refuses to bend, thinks we're nuts and just ditches us somehow. In which case, we'd be further from all our objectives.

 

[treave]

It hasn't occurred to Ean to control it because so far he hasn't had reason to. Go back to the first choice of this chapter. Basically his mindset is now that feeding is ok if I do it to the bad, and so far only the bad elicit the anger. His resurrection means he's not a natural extension of the Ean before, and that his character becomes more malleable where the hunger is concerned; it's part of his nature and he's more likely to give in to it if there's no reason not to.

As for the tracker, she says she'll remove it, but it's up to you whether you trust her near your body again.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

And Seks being bad so Ean's gonna hulk out and eat her... Crap didn't realize we were pulling that trigger back then.

on the choices/consequences, Treavebro.

We're Ean though, right? Or a part of him? We should be able to make him at least question his behaviour so far as we all are noticing it more and more. A nudge back toward self control if nothing else.

edit: How are our regen powers, Treave? Can we just ask her to point where it is so we can cut/dig it out ourselves? Will we heal up quickly if we do?

 

[oscar]

A. Devour her, gain all her information and become King of Sumeria with the aid of the Guitans.

 

[Kipeci]

B.

 

[Esquilax]

1. Cure or at least learn to control our hunger. - Sek is probably the only one willing to help us on this and it may tie into her own goals of curing her people.
2. Kill Marduk.
3. Kill and/or pacify the immortal "gods" of Greece. (Hopefully either Marduk will help with this or vice versa...)
4. Continue to seek allies.
5. Reforge the weapon Sek told us about. It sounded like Anbar-Shi on steroids. Should help us with 2&3. We'll probably need Sek for this.
6. Learn light manipulation. Treave mentioned this earlier. It'd make us a near perfect assassin. Almost completely undetectable.Identify and deal with new threats as they come.

Regarding the upcoming showdown between Marduk and Zeus, I'm putting my money on Zeus. Marduk's most powerful lieutenant, Mindfucker Jr., is going to remain in Sumeria and Nusku even said that he didn't expect any of his experimental troops to come back home. Babylon probably has a serious edge when it comes to mortal warriors due to the alliance with Egypt and Marduk's own super-soldiers, but they've still got to fight a whole fucking pantheon.

I think it really comes down to who has the most Immortals/Gieloth. And the Greeks have more. This thing is going to drag out and take some time (I'm predicting a couple of years) but we must intervene before either side defeats the other. I shudder to think of the kind of powers a guy like Zeus could gain should he slay Marduk.

Worst part is, we can't stop feeding now, or we stand no chance of defeating Marduk, and the cradle of civilization is screwed. I've a feeling that my suggestion of going Buddha for a couple decades will be more a matter of necessity then lulz with this. That is why getting angry with Sekhenun and intimidating her into giving us information is a bad idea.

We should look into ways of increasing our power that don't require devouring anything. Obtaining the loyalty of Gudersu's people is a great start*, finding the parts for another Anbar-Shi would also help a lot. Parts are scarce, but I think we should be able to find them if we raid the places where Nusku performed his experiments. Another good bet might be one of Marduk's palaces or temples.

Our power level before eating Nusku was almost where we were at in our prime, so it seems reasonable to assume that we are at least as strong as we were pre-earthquake at this point. Combined with a good army, I think it should be enough:

“Before you lost your powers, you might have been able to beat him if you had help. Fighting him alone would have been extremely dangerous. Right now... well, how do you feel?”

“Almost as good as I was before in some aspects... still lacking in others.” you say honestly.

* I'm predicting that our true bro Gundersu has gone on a trip to Gutium to unite all the Gutian tribes in the east for an invasion of Sumeria.

 

[Zero Credibility]

A. Devour her, gain all her information and become King of Sumeria with the aid of the Guitans.

Wasn't it established that our hunger doesn't work that way? We get no new knowledge or powers from feeding. The only thing feeding does is prevent power loss.

We really need to learn to control this thing before it starts to control us, and we've been feeding way too much lately. I propose a Gieloth and human free diet until we either learn to control our rage and hunger or we really, really need to be at full power.

 

[CappenVarra]

I'm getting strong Devour Soul vibes here... :justasplanned:

 

[Baltika9]

become King of Sumeria with the aid of the Guitans.

Yeah, I don't think going all "Hail to the King, baby" is all that good of an idea. I mean, remember when the voices said that this would bring a lot of attention from the Masters and Gieloth both? Yeah, we've been galloping all around Babylon and nobody seems to know we exist, save for the people we talked to.
I'm sensing an opportunity here. If we can get through this Zeus and Marduk situation without being discovered for what we are, we're better off going ghost and doing the important things, like piecing Vajra together, finding the cure for ourselves and the Gieloth, learning about the conflicts, etc.
treave: I request that Ean asks Sekhenun something in the following vibe: "Sekhenun, I'm trusting you here." I'd very much like to see her reaction.
Esquilax:

Shamash – the top lieutenant of Marduk, and a powerful Gieloth in his own right. He is Marduk’s right hand and the foremost general of his armed forces.

Ahem.

 

[Smashing Axe]

I agree with you in regards to becoming king, Baltika, there's just too much time wasted on petty administration. What I think we should do instead is what we did in Egypt, set up a trustworthy honourable king and stick around for a few years to secure their rule, and then move on. It will keep us in the shadows while affording us influence and if things turn dire, a stronghold to fall back to.

 

[Baltika9]

I agree with you in regards to becoming king, Baltika, there's just too much time wasted on petty administration. What I think we should do instead is what we did in Egypt, set up a trustworthy honourable king and stick around for a few years to secure their rule, and then move on. It will keep us in the shadows while affording us influence and if things turn dire, a stronghold to fall back to.

OR! Or, we knock Itani up(marry her, of course. I don't want to piss off Gudersu and, by proxy, the Gutians. Besides, she's a good girl, wouldn't do to fuck her over), then dramatically "die of poisoning" and tell Gudersu that He has the regency, and our children the throne, or something to that effect. Well, how 'bout it, bros?
I think that's a smart move, immortal cannibal children and abandonment issues notwithstanding.