[LP CYOA] Epic

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

B-but the library is for learning...

Frick'n Reading Rainbow fill'n mah head w LIES!

 

[Azira]

Ah. Well, if that's the case. Can't have Dio becoming the god here. I think we just might have to kill the poor schmucks. I've flopped.

 

[Esquilax]

You wouldn't really have the time or opportunity to do anything fancy. Maybe if you had gone to the IAE headquarters earlier and dug around there, you'd be more familiar and better prepared for this, but apparently a library is a good place to get actually useful information about a reality-altering god-machine.

Could we not subdue Mikey and Rory in some way without offing them, though? Dio was surprisingly disappointed when we chose not to harm him, and I'm not sure why that is yet. But if we've chosen not to kill him, we should stick with that decision. The Masters we're with have begun to trust us, plus we are physically much stronger and faster now that we've merged our powers with Rei's, so couldn't we just knock them out before they can react?

I put my trust in the Masters and their plan and help them carry it out. If what they say is true, things will fall into place and work fine once they enslave Diogenes as the new Observer. I can decide what to do after that.

@treave, assuming we pick A and the plan works to perfection - Dio's mind is subdued and he becomes a lobotomized husk who can only follow the parameters that Mikey and Rory have put forth, then what is there to do after? If we have a new Observer who can eliminate the ghosts that have accumulated over countless eons, then isn't that it?

 

[Baltika9]

Actually, Dio may not be coming back: he's still Ean's successor and I think that Ean, after that juice he got from Gilgamesh, can devour him.
Sure, Dio is one stubborn bastard, but Ean is too, and now he's infused with a whole civilization.

And if Dio isn't coming back, then what? I think we should be better acquainted with the system through B.

 

[Esquilax]

Actually, Dio may not be coming back: he's still Ean's successor and I think that Ean, after that juice he got from Gilgamesh, can devour him.
Sure, Dio is one stubborn bastard, but Ean is too, and now he's infused with a whole civilization.

No, if we pick A, that doesn't matter because it would involve transplanting Dio's consciousness into the Observer. What I'm curious about is who the Observer was prior to all of this? Despite having nearly unlimited power, this Observer is pretty benign - I'm betting that it's one of the people that worked alongside the Masters on this project.

And if Dio isn't coming back, then what? I think we should be better acquainted with the system through B.

You mean, the system we don't know and didn't learn about when we had the chance to. That system, right? If they have a plan in place and now they can finally put it to work, why fuck with it? Yes, Dio has a supreme force of will, but if they can somehow lobotomize him, maybe he can be controlled - we might cause more harm in trying to influence things than we would in letting them run their course.

I suppose we could transplant the Observer's consciousness with say, Ean's, but the issue is that we simply have no idea how the Observer works and we don't have time to here.

 

[Baltika9]

Their plan consists of putting Dio into the same machine he defied for eons. I don't think a piece of softwarecan keep him down and if they want to place a lobotomized Dio in there, that's bad news for us: he'll just be their puppet and these pricks are not our friends.

 

[treave]

As long as they have Vajra equipped you'll have to work to disable or defeat them. Knocking out is not an option.

As for if A works, that could be it. Depending on whether Senya will let it all go or insist on bringing the system down. If it works. There are yet a couple of hands he has yet to play, though it's not yet revealed for narrative purposes. Suffice to say he thinks he has a chance against Iae and the Masters just by himself, even if it's a small chance.

 

[Esquilax]

Okay, so the crux of it I guess is this: if we pick A, we put our trust in the Masters that have admitted to fucking up more or less all the time*, if we pick B we would be tampering with something that we don't know, and if we pick C we put all our chips on a hail mary victory against the Masters and Iae all by ourselves.

* Give them some credit here: over the eons, their tech has improved greatly and now they actually have access to the main console, so there's no question that they can reach the Great Idea this way. However, the overall idea of trying to enslave a being like Dio by putting him in the driver's seat to ultimate power just seems... well, fucking deranged. "Trust us bro, we'll get it right this time!" said Mikey.

Nevertheless, we did see Dio's face get angry, which tells me that he sees Sheldon as a serious threat to him. Senya hasn't met the guy, so I can't say anything one way or another about whether this plan is the right one, but if he's clever enough to get Dio to lose his cool like that, perhaps he's got the right idea.

Voting A for now, still might flop to B. I really could go either way on this one.

 

[ScubaV]

@treave, you said that Dio doesn't have to be present for A. How does the consciousness transplant work? Would it, say, suck his mind out in a short time period, essentially interrupting his physical activities?

 

[treave]

First Iae is going to appear. Then they'll drop Dio in. Just a few button presses will do, the hard work in programming the transfer has already been done beforehand.

 

[ScubaV]

As much as I might doubt the Masters' competency I think I'm going to vote A. Dio decided that whatever Sheldon was up to was more important than keeping tabs on us. A seems like the fastest way to keep him from interfering with Sheldon. A will undoubtedly not work exactly as the Masters intend or that would be too easy and anti-climactic of an ending (meta-gaming here). But we may be able to continue influencing Dio as the new observer after the fact, especially if the other Masters help.

 

[Baltika9]

And since when are either of them our friends? If the Masters succeed, then they'll just use their new slave-observer to annihilate our invasion force. If Dio breaks free, then everyone is completely fucked.


Senya is a master hacker, he already interacted with master tech (quantum computer) and has a solid grasp on their language. Plus, we hold both sides of the "Great Task Manager" now, making all interactions with it easier. I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out, even if it's just a stalling tactic for Ean, Shulgi, Sek & Co. to get here.

 

[treave]

Current tally seems to be:

A - 3
B - 4
C - 1

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Flopping to B. I don't want the Masters to kill Ean and company after they make Dio their slave. Besides, if we trigger a lockdown, Ean can devour all the Masters and become the new IAE and they won't be able to do anything to end our universe. No gods, no masters. edit: 'cept Ean who will be an awesome Observer.

 

[Baltika9]

I mean, really? Are we about to trust the same Masters we fought every step of this LP? Just allow them to achieve dominance (or unwittingly make Dio God)? They are not our friends.

 

[treave]

They are not our friends.

But they can be. Give peace a chance.

 

[Baltika9]

Sorry, man. They broke my heart a long time ago. I can't believe anyone who would exterminate those cute and cuddly Gieloth.
That, and experience says to never trust an evil nerd named Sheldon.

Give peace a chance.

 

[treave]

You could also go C if you hate them so much. Wipe them all out.

 

[treave]

To be fair Ean did just do the equivalent of breaking into a house and then having his buddies drive a tank through the wall. Some force is justified to evict the undesirables.

 

[Baltika9]

You could also go C if you hate them so much. Wipe them all out.

Alright, what's so bad about B? I know we haven't taken the opportunity to scout out the IAE central, but Sena is a) a master hacker, and b) already operated with a Master-patterned quantum computer. I think we should be able to cobble something extremely trollworthy. Like turning Dio into a cat and setting him up for a cage match with the dog ...yeah.

I'm really split on the Masters. Sometimes I pity them (the whole "spent billions of years playing cards" talk just underlined the horror of a existance these guys had to deal with). Sometimes I consider them deplorable idiots who let the backstabbing maniac run things. Sometimes I consider them monsters for killing untold ammounts of people. Sometimes I consider them altruists for sticking up and trying to fix the mess instead of, I dunno, saying "fuck it", hitching a avatar and having constant, decadent pleasure for a few millenia.

Honestly, the way I see it is this: our (the Masters') original dimension encountered some bullshit with the Unobserved, who were in the process of assimilating their dimension, and after repeatedly failing to wipe them out, created the IAE to turn the tide of war. Problem is, only thirteen nerds (and rapidly getting less) survived, and had to resort to games of extradimensional dickery and manipulation to figure a way out of their predicament, endlessly replaying the history of their universe to find some specific answer as to how to stop the Unobserved.
And all they succeeded in is pissing off Gilgamesh, Ean and Shulgi. And the whole Gieloth race. Because everyone else is below their awesome genius. Or something.

 

[treave]

Nothing bad about B. All three choices are great choices actually, with their own pros.

The Ghostpocalypse is a problem inherent with the current Observer, that much is already made clear. Also, as per the information in the library, the world at large does not appear to know of any impending apocalypse.

 

[Baltika9]

Oh, even better, they engineered the apocalypse themselves. Nerd rage at it's finest, I guess.

 

[treave]

The All-Seeing Eye

“Alright, we’re running the program now and forcing Iae to manifest,” says Mikey. “Keep your fingers crossed.” I keep them crossed, a faint smile on my lips.

“Everything looks good – the fight’s spilling over to Earth’s outer atmosphere, but yeah, Sheldon’s got it under control,” says Rory, observing the battle through screens that I cannot see. Multiple tremors shake the facility as the battle rages. I wait. They will exhaust each other out. “The upload’s going smoothly. Iae won’t know what hit it,” reports Mikey. “…and it’s done. Dio should be internalizing the rules about… wait.”

“What’s wrong?” Rory goes over to Mikey in concern.

“I… it can’t-“ Mikey can’t find the words to express himself, and so I answer for him. “Diogenes is rejecting your rules, is he not?”

“How did you – but no, that’s not actually possible.” Mikey grits his teeth, his expression pale.

“Come on, man, don’t fool around. Are you sure you did it right?” says Rory, raising his voice at Mikey. The self-proclaimed code monkey nods his head furiously. “The program would have bound even Iae. It was foolproof.”

“Well, there’s your problem,” I remark. “Diogenes is not Iae.”

“It is still categorically impossible for anything to even resist, let along reject, those rules.”

“Impossible? You have spent untold aeons in languor and forgotten one simple fact. If there is one thing we humans can do, it is making the impossible possible.”

The Masters blink at me.

“What? I thought it was a cool line.” I say, perhaps a bit defensively. Then, it happens. It is a noise that you only notice in its absence – a low, soft buzz; the whispers of the multiverse. The myriad murmurs slow down and fade away until all but one whisper is left. We are now cut off, an isolated pocket dimension where the Masters’ reach cannot touch my universe.

“Oh, fuck,” groans Rory. “Not again.” Mikey glares at me. “What did you do?”

“The impossible.” I grin at him as I raise my hand. With a single gesture I reduce the main control panel of the IAE system into dust. Predictably, the two Masters throw up a shield around themselves, suddenly cautious of me. “What the hell, man? Do you know what that means?” shouts Mikey in a panic.

“Of course. You can’t operate or manipulate the system again,” I laugh. “Don’t worry. You won’t need it anymore. As for what I did before this, I expect your new god will be summoning us for a chat pretty soon.”

It happens faster than I expected. Diogenes reaches towards me right as I finish my sentence – I put up no resistance.

In the blink of an eye, I find myself standing on a flat, white plain. The Earth hangs brilliantly in space, a blue globe frozen in time. All around me are scattered, burning, gigantic wrecks of metal, with real bodies entangled in the fiery hulks - victims of the battle that continues far above me, as tens of thousands of warships pit their strength against thousands of Vajra Shula fortresses. I spot Erika against the hull of a fallen cruiser, the lower half of her robotic body torn away. She stirs, sensing my gaze, and a slight smile spreads across her lips.

What did you do, Hoshikawa Senya?

The voice comes from a gigantic, lidless eye, its iris an iridescent blue.

“I am digging the new look, Diogenes,” I say. “How’s the depth perception, though?”

You think you can take this lightly, but you are wrong. What did you do?

I stare at Diogenes straight in the eye. Before I can answer, multiple streaks of lightning smash into the ground between us. As the smoke clears, I see Ean and Shulgi – I should have known that weasel found a way to survive – in a stand-off against three other Masters. All of them look roughed up and worse for the wear. I hop onto the highest metal wreck in the vicinity and survey them. Immortals, Masters – Stella and the dog appear in a flash, as does Mikey and Rory, who look absolutely terrified – and a fledgling god on the verge of seizing omnipotence and omniscience. I speak to them all.

“It appears that the system has encountered a paradox of sorts,” I begin, as they turn to look at me. “Over there you have the manifestation of IAE, the new Observer of all existence, and so on and so forth.” I gesture vaguely, dismissively in Diogenes’s direction. “And here,” I point at myself, “you have the arbiter. The key to the system. Unfortunately, it still bears the identification of the old Iae, which should have been wiped away in the process. Thankfully, I managed to figure out a way to retain it. The system encountered an error, and resolved it the only way it knew how. By locking down everything. That’s really shoddy programming, by the way.”

“When did you do it?” asks Mikey, his professional interest overcoming his fear.

“The security workstation,” I reply good-naturedly. “You should never have allowed me to touch a computer, but then again you had to, didn’t you? Well, that’s beside the point now.”

“We can undo it,” says one of the Masters, a man with glasses.

“You could, if I hadn’t destroyed the only interface by which you could do so. Just ask Mikey and Rory.” They visibly shrink away when the Master turns to glare at them.

“I am the arbiter and the gatekeeper. None shall pass from this dimension except through my will,” I say. “And it is my will, sincerely, that we all sit down and play cards for eternity.” There are a couple of instinctive groans from the Masters. I see Ean staring at me, a strange expression on his face, while Shulgi has an amused smile.

I will wrest open the gate and tear down your universe for this, Senya. I will not be denied.

“You’re not dropping bullshit on me anymore?” I grin. “It looks like you know exactly how it works. One of us has to die for the other to gain full control over the system.”

Even now, I have more control, young fool.

And I don’t doubt that he does. Despite all my powers, my body is still fundamentally human. I am not invulnerable. I am merely a speck – an immovable, irritable speck, but a speck nonetheless – in the face of the power that Diogenes has gained. His apotheosis is incomplete, but progressing at a rapid rate. He does not see and know all yet, but he will soon become acclimatized to his new powers enough that I will stand very little chance. Ean and Shulgi will no doubt side with me against Diogenes, no matter what they might decide after. The Masters are a tough call – I suspect Diogenes’s rejection of their rules have led them to decide that his nature may be too dangerous to be controlled, but I do not know if they will side against him.

Kyrie appears by my side.

“The conditions are cleared,” she says. “You can begin the process at any time.”

“I won’t do it if I don’t have to,” I reply.

“Maybe,” she shrugs. “You know it doesn’t matter to me, since you can’t be anything more than an idiot.”

***

I will need a way to overcome Diogenes. There are not many ways that I can reliably do so now.

A. Thankfully, the Sword of Ean has managed to survive the battle intact, and apparently the bomb has too. With my current powers I should be able to constrain the damage to a limited area. I ram the Sword of Ean into Diogenes’s Eye and detonate the Jupiter Bomb while he is still vulnerable.

B. The return of my powers of creation as well as establishing my credentials as the arbiter of the system allows me to draw upon the billion victims of the Gray Death. They will become a source of my power, fueling my strength to greater heights.

***

“Arbiter,” one of the Masters calls out, the man with the spectacles. “My name is Sheldon, and I am offering you a proposal.”

I thought we were friends, Sheldon, says the eye mockingly. You are just delaying the inevitable. My victory.

“Your friends tend to meet a nasty end, Diogenes,” laughs Sheldon, before he resumes addressing me. “Arbiter, I have a proposal. Whoever takes Iae’s place really does not matter to me, but I have a score to settle with your friends over there.” He points a finger at Ean and Shulgi. “If you allow us to work out our issues in another arena, we will leave you to discuss with Diogenes on how best to resolve this little impasse the both of you are in without interfering.” If the Masters did interfere – all seven of them – they would make my task of handling Diogenes significantly harder.

“Unfortunately, I have a score to settle with Diogenes,” says Shulgi. “I refuse this proposal.”

“I am of a mind with Shulgi. We can work this out here,” replies Ean as he raises his swords.

***

A. I approve of having a battle royale right here. I’ll take on both Diogenes and the Masters if that is how they want to play it.

B. I persuade Ean and Shulgi to battle the Masters somewhere else, so that I can deal with Diogenes one to one.

 

[Baltika9]

Is it possible to restore those disassembled to life in our universe? And are we also using Kyrie for it?

I told you we'd come up with an awesome troll. Even Ean and Shulgi approve.

 

[treave]

You'll burn them up as fuel.