[LP CYOA] Epic

[Kipeci]

I'd really rather avoid fighting the remaining Greek immortals if we could help it, yeah.

 

[Esquilax]

Baltika9, I thought about killing Marduk, making a break for it and dealing with Zeus another time, but I'm not sure how we'd do it. We're on his turf and Ares is going to be cutting off our retreat. If we didn't taunt him into coming back home, that idea might work, but I don't see it happening now.

If you've got any ideas, I'm all ears.

Now that treave has mentioned the benefits of having a piece of Vajra with us, I don't think that it's wise to send it back to Babylon. We can't give it to Iltani in case we lose; at this point, the stakes are so high that we either win big, or lose big. So based on that, we really have to be fully committed to getting whatever edge we can at this point. Hedging our bets this late in the game is a terrible idea.

So having thought about it some more, here's another idea I had. I think that this is the best one yet:

E) Feed on a few fresh corpses as we make our way up the summit - it's not much, but it'll do. In any case, we should arrive before Marduk's unleashed his trump card. Once Marduk gets ready to devour Zeus, we should use Ean's awesome telekinesis abilities to take both Marduk and Zeus' piece of the Vajra while they're both distracted and still unaware of him (psychic blank ftw!).

The fragment of Vajra that you had brought with you thrummed as it sensed the gathering of power, and for a brief moment it appears as if it'll fly right out of your robes and towards the peak. Sekhenun had said that there was a possibility that you might be able to use it to gain an edge over Marduk, though there was a risk that he could snatch it from you. It looks like Vajra may play a role in the coming battle if you bring it up there.

This thing is barely able to sit still within our robes, and I'm betting that the same thing is true for both Zeus and Marduk. So while they're distracted, we use the full might and precision of our telekinetic abilities to pull the remaining pieces of Vajra whole again. At that point, can hold Marduk off until Ares appears for meatshield duty. With the two of us against Marduk, we have a solid chance at victory.

Hopefully, once Ares notices the super-powered Gieloth that just ate Zeus, he'll see him as a bigger threat than us. If anyone's got ideas on how to make Ares more likely to hit Marduk than us, I'm listening.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Don't send Itani off - she'd just be killed and Varja would be taken.

Here's my plan: We grab Iltani's head and use our psychic powers to put her to sleep for a few hours. Then we sneak up and steal Varja in the confusion. edit: yes and snack on some corpses or maybe at least an arm or two on the way up...

treave is the fragment's power boost enough to give us some light manipulation? Might help with the sneaking part...

Regardless we need to shapeshift to look like a random Greek. We don't want to have to actually fight Ares when he shows up. We should just let him be all "Where's Runi?! Ah, screw it I'll just help kill Marduk..."

 

[treave]

Nope, you won't have light. Also you don't have enough fine control over your powers to put someone to sleep with any measure of precision. You could scramble her brains for good if you tried.

 

[Baltika9]

Esquilax: I'm liking your E plan.

As for killing Marduk: we telepathically contact Edem, tell him we're here and coordinate a sneak attack on Marduk, and run for it. Alternatively, we can sneak in, kill Zeus, loot him and tell him "See ya back in Sumeria, ya pansy." (Ean's newly awakened trolling skills should come useful). And, yeah, Iltani should take a nap for a few hours, in a safe spot, otherwise feeding might provoke her into killing us, or attacking us.Word of God says it's a stupid idea. As for Ares: Lambchop has a good idea, but I'd like to see how "uh, wun't me" would work.

We're shaping up to be quite the troll: Masters thought us insignificant, Marduk thought us dead, Sekhenun thought us a stupid dog/ape, Aphrodie thought us easy to manipulate and Ares, well, he got burned. Honestly, Ean should get a trolling skill tree. Seems appropriate. He is about to use the first perk: "U mad, bro?"

Edit: I just solved our problem, didn't I? After we give him such a big "fuck you", what's he gonna do? Leave it laying like that? Hell no. We might even have Edem steal the last piece of Vajra and deliver it to us, for OP sake.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Nope, you won't have light. Also you don't have enough fine control over your powers to put someone to sleep with any measure of precision. You could scramble her brains for good if you tried.

Well, her body would still be intact, right? *cough* What?

Ok then, we tell her we need to sneak up there, but that she needs to travel to [insert nearby town] and find the old seer woman Zora. Only Zora can contact the spirits and tell us the magic spell that will make Marduk lose his immortality and be vulnerable. In the mean time we'll hide and try to hold him off should he win soon. All of this is bs of course (to those who are skimming), but it should occupy her. edit: if she still doesn't buy it we knock her out. Gently.

 

[Esquilax]

Lambchop19: It would take too much time. We can't afford to waste a single minute now. We barely have enough time to eat and get to the summit, we definitely don't have enough time for a bullshit story so she stays out of trouble. I still have no idea what to do about her.

If we want to make sure Ares goes after Marduk and not us, then why not shapeshift into Zeus? Even with the boost that Anbar-Shi gives to all of our powers, our shapeshifting powers are still kinda shitty, but I think that we're at least at the level where we could pass as Zeus at a distance. That's really all we'd need for a reckless, headstrong type like Ares to assume that Marduk is Runi.

Edit: Yeah, I guess we could just knock her out so she doesn't put herself in danger. At worst, it'll at least give her an idea of what marriage with Ean will be like.

 

[Baltika9]

Seriously, I think this may work:
F. Knock Iltani out, snack up as much as you can, sneak in, kill Zeus and simply leave. See what Marduk does, we can stalk him, or go back to Sumeria, where we can meet him on our terms. With two thousand Gutians.
Seriously, a guy leads a devastating campaign against a whole pantheon, reinforced by the other superpower of his region, slaughters EVERYBODY, loses almost all his men, and in the end comes out empty handed. His credibility will be blown. Marduk, as God and Legend will lose all credulity. It will be the ultimate humiliation and victory, to deny him the prize he sacrificed so much for. And we'll still have our spy, Edem left.
Edit: And the beauty of it is, if we fail to seak out in time, we still have two pieces of Vajra, Ares and a dead Zeus. Basically, it's a slightly altered version of Esquilax's C.
Edit2: Although I really would like to write a good one-liner on Zeus' corpse. Something like "Problim?" or "Come and get some, pussy." or "See ya, loser." Oh, maybe a little flag with the KKK troll, the symbol of our great Empire?

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Seriously, I think this may work:
His credibility will be blown. Marduk, as God and Legend will lose all credulity. It will be the ultimate humiliation and victory, to deny him the prize he sacrificed so much for. And we'll still have our spy, Edem left.

Credibility? Who needs that when you have superpowers? We didn't need credibility to slaughter Ares' troops back at the coast of Egypt and Marduk won't need any to slaughter half of Babylon single-handedly, eat Sek, the Gutians, us and then take power by force - very in-character for him really...

 

[Baltika9]

Right, but Marduk's, the legend's, credibility will be gone, not just among humans, but among Gieloth. Factor in his rebellious shit, and we've got a dead man walking. It's like hyping yourself up to be a sex god, everyone believeing you and then, when the moment of truth, ahem, comes, *WHAM* premature ejaculation. because the other Gieloth will know what he wanted, what he was up to. And they'll know he failed. And if they don't know, we'll make sure they get the memo.
Edit: Legends are powerful things, my friend. I'd wager among the Gieloth as well, waht with their courts and politics. They're like an interstellar Roman Senate/Venetian Court.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Sorry, but I'm still not seeing how this really hurts him.

His legend - aside from the legend he usurped from us in name - has been about him being an insanely powerful being. The gieloth think that and so do humans - that's what made him believable as a god. If he kills Zeus and all the greek "gods" - even at the cost of his army - he'll only seem more powerful to humans and the gieloth will *know* he's more powerful from devouring Zeus and maybe even finding a use for that half of Varja.

 

[Baltika9]

Well, that's where the plan to kill Zeus, for which we have a toxin from Sekhenun, and looting his Vajra piece, comes in, no? After that, he will almost certainly return to Sumeria to avenge his defeat or stalk off into the wilderness and LARP Genghis Khan later.
In essence, we deny him his hard-fought prize and leave, optionally, a message :You want your shit? See you in Babylon, bro. No one takes my legacy!"

 

[Esquilax]

In any case, this is getting off-topic.* Let's return to how we can kill this motherfucker and make it out with our hide.

Seriously, I think this may work:
F. Knock Iltani out, snack up as much as you can, sneak in, kill Zeus and simply leave. See what Marduk does, we can stalk him, or go back to Sumeria, where we can meet him on our terms. With two thousand Gutians.

Leaving won't be so simple. We have Ares waiting for us at the bottom of the summit, remember? If that weren't an issue, perhaps your idea would work, but we'd still have to deal with him. It would defeat the whole purpose of drawing him here.

Regardless, we don't know how the Devourer Fragment works. If we kill Zeus, the artifact's powers might actually make it even easier for Marduk to devour Zeus' corpse and absorb his powers. It's a huge fucking gamble. Plus, you throw Ares into the mix and the whole situation is just really volatile.

E seems like it allows for the most control on our part. We know that Vajra wants to come together at last, and our telekinetic abilities are powerful and precise enough to take the pieces that Zeus and Marduk have while they are distracted with each other. Since Ean is a psychic blank, Marduk would never suspect this kind of subterfuge. We shapeshift into Zeus, Ares comes to back us up under the belief that Marduk is Runi, and just like that, we have decent odds at victory.

* At the end of the day, it would still result in just postponing whatever Marduk wants to do next rather than eliminating him. And y'know, a shitload of heat because we just killed an avatar of a Master. I'd rather leave Greece on good terms with the remaining Olympians. Athena and Artemis seem like they have true SIS potential.

 

[Baltika9]

Leaving won't be so simple. We have Ares waiting for us at the bottom of the summit, remember? If that weren't an issue, perhaps your idea would work, but we'd still have to deal with him. It would defeat the whole purpose of drawing him here.

What were your exact words? Psychic blank FTW? If we really must, we can just leave from the other side of the cliff. Psychic blank FTW. But, I see your point. Just, how are we going to pull this off, exactly. without revealing our self and nature?
Edit: Alternatively, we could just take the corpse with us. Also, we'll be operating in full view of both Marduk and the immortals if we choose to cooperate with either. They are bound to notice our psychic invisibility. And that brings questions. If we shield ourselves as another Immortal, that will be an immortal that the Masters won't account for. Bad idea. If we shield ourselves as a Gieloth, we're reamed from both sides, as Marduk doesn't acknowledge anyone that doesn't work for him. If we disguise our self as a human, they'll call our bullshit in ten seconds, tops.

 

[Smashing Axe]

I'm fine with revealing out true nature so long as we get to feast on both of the fuckers. It should give us enough of a power boost to stand our ground against most opponents. If worse comes to worse and the Masters decide they have to exterminatus the world because of us, we'll hitch a ride with Sek to the great beyond so that the earth remains safe, and return once we find a countermeasure to the Master's world destroying power.

 

[treave]

If we disguise our self as a human, they'll call our bullshit in ten seconds, tops.

The ensuing "what in the world are you!?" shenanigans would be funny though.

 

[Baltika9]

If we disguise our self as a human, they'll call our bullshit in ten seconds, tops.

The ensuing "what in the world are you!?" shenanigans would be funny though.

Would "I'm just that awesome." be an acceptable reply?
Or:
"What in the world are you?"
"GONE!"

 

[Esquilax]

I'm fine with revealing out true nature so long as we get to feast on both of the fuckers. It should give us enough of a power boost to stand our ground against most opponents. If worse comes to worse and the Masters decide they have to exterminatus the world because of us, we'll hitch a ride with Sek to the great beyond so that the earth remains safe, and return once we find a countermeasure to the Master's world destroying power.

Ean is among the most powerful immortals in the world right now, he can already stand his ground against most opponents. It's only 1900 B.C., we have plenty of time to gain power and fight the Masters without getting so greedy. We have no idea what feasting on both of them will do. Sekhenun wants to coexist with humanity; she seems to like Earth. If we bring the attention of the Masters more than even Marduk did, why would she want to help us?

And besides, if we become a Devourer, we may not even be in control of ourselves to even ask her for help - we might just end up eating her. And that's the upside - the downside is that Marduk could take over our consciousness because we decided to be a DEVOUR SOUL!!! dumbfuck right after we beat him.

The reason we need to feed beforehand is so that we can restrain ourselves after we defeat Marduk. This is why I suggested feeding on Iltani before. Yes, it's shitty, but it's a far better alternative than Marduk/Zeus.* Another possibility that would be safe is Shamash or Hera, but fuck knows why you'd want to go after her. I know Iltani's our waifu and all, but I have no idea why people find eating her to sate our hunger such a terrible idea while at the same time thinking that devouring Marduk is going to be the answer to all our problems.

* Of course, if feeding on a few corpses on our way up the summit satisfies Ean's hunger and doesn't waste any more time, that's the best thing we can do. Whatever happens, we have to get there before Marduk has killed Zeus.

 

[Baltika9]

Esquilax: Honestly, I think we're past half-measures here. The only two approaches I see working are the stealth approach and the genocidal approach. Olympians aren't our friends(all-devouring abomination) and Marduk isn't our friend(competition). There is no way to get through this without revealing who Ean is. Once that cat jumps out of the bag, and both of them are still alive, we're screwed. So, yeah, the best choice is to go fully one way or the other, this is one of the situations where half-measures kill.

 

[Kipeci]

I'm not sure that eating Marduk is such a great idea. We've already read about how, in the other timeline, we could have taken our time to consolidate power and overthrow Marduk at a critical moment later when he faced off against the Chinese immortals. Devouring Marduk would bring us a lot of power, sure, but we're already fairly strong and... well, none of this 'DEVOUR SOUL!!!' sort of thing strikes me very well. We can take a nibble every once in a while, but when we're throwing around the idea that we must devour the daughter of our bro-est bro and potential waifu to prepare us for devouring the soul of a very powerful, very evil Gieloth like Marduk who'll be simmering inside us waiting for a moment to strike, I think we're going way too far.

Let's just kill him and get out of Dodge as fast as we can.

 

[Esquilax]

Kipeci: I wasn't suggesting eating Iltani to prepare us for a DEVOUR SOUL!!! feast on Marduk. I was suggesting the exact opposite. Ean hasn't fed in months, and if he doesn't soon, he may not be able to control himself if Marduk is on the menu. Doing something callous like this will prevent us from losing control and feeding on Marduk/Zeus, which would cause a shitload of consequences.

I have no intention or desire to feed on Marduk. The voices trusted Ean with the hunger because they knew he was noble and responsible enough to handle it, I don't want to turn into some retarded villain when we've been playing the hero all this time, even in spite of our condition.

You would have to feed soon, or risk losing control.

First, we need to focus this discussion a bit further so it isn't a clusterfuck. Remind me of anything I missed, and I'll add it to this post.

The key points to note here will be your hunger: feed, or take the risk of wielding it against the enemy, whether you try to sneak through the battle or create a distraction by yourself from the back of the lines, possibly trapping Marduk between you and Zeus, and whether you pass Vajra to Iltani

Let me organize this a bit better:

Do you feed:

A: Feed on corpses along the summit
B: Feed on Deionarra Iltani. You are the Practical Incarnation.
C: Don't feed, taking the risk of wielding it against the enemy

How will you approach Marduk?

A: Create a distraction by attacking and devouring Shamash. It'll sate your hunger, and it will postpone Marduk from his goal, buying time for Ares to reach him. At that point you can rendezvous with Edem/attack Zeus/whatever. Maybe you can go after Zeus while Marduk is distracted with Ares.

B: Sneak through the battle, waiting for Marduk to unleash his trump card on Zeus. At that point, use your telekinetic abilities to take both Zeus and Marduk's pieces of the Vajra. With a fully assembled Vajra, you'd stand a fighting chance against Marduk.

C: Sneak through the battle and make a beeline towards Zeus, denying Marduk his meal. Of course, you're not sure if Marduk's artifact would be able to devour Zeus anyways.

Do you give the piece of the Vajra to Iltani?

1: Yes.
2: No.
3: KNOCK THE BITCH OUT!!!

 

[Smashing Axe]

The reason I thought you guys were talking about devouring some dead bodies or Iltani was to up our feeding points to be sufficient for devouring Marduk when/if he tries to consume us. Since he possesses this devouring device he may well try it on us rather than Zeus. If he does I'd like our nature to be strong enough to eat him. That, and I'm a power-hungry Shulgi-esque bastard.

 

[newcomer]

AB3


I also thought that the whole reason for devouring corpses / Iltani is so that we can put Marduk on our menu, but it turns out you don't want to... I guess that's fine too, considering that the masters will nuke the earth if we get too strong (by then we can escape through Sek's wormhole provided we have enough of this "Sekhenum points" )

 

[Smashing Axe]

A
B
2

Also feed on Marduk when we defeat him.

 

[Storyfag]

AA3 for me.