[LP CYOA] Epic

[treave]

The Mexican Gieloth cartel is really fucking pissed with Marduk for invading India, but they're going to settle China's shit first before doing anything about him. If there is anything else going on, particularly in Sumeria, it isn't via long-distance comms. You'll have to ask around.

The only thing that confuses me is why Sekhenun didn't tell us about the Gieloth going after the tribesmen if she knew that we were heading there.

SHE SPIED ON YOU AND WAS JEALOUS YOU WERE GETTING ON SO WELL WITH SOME BARBARIAN WOMAN!!! It wasn't coincidence Nusku attacked right when he did.

Serious answer: Mistakes happen. People get unlucky. A single messenger dying while fleeing from some random Gutian bandits could change the course of an entire war, for example.

 

[Smashing Axe]

I don't think we ever had the option of going after Edem for our voting choices. I thought it was because he was beyond our power-range and so Sek was saving him for later. It could have also been because Sek wanted him alive, just as much.

Voting A, we'll see where this goes. I wish we had some way to absorb select parts of an enemy's memory so we can finally make our spheece mheerenes

 

[Baltika9]

SHE SPIED ON YOU AND WAS JEALOUS YOU WERE GETTING ON SO WELL WITH SOME BARBARIAN WOMAN!!! It wasn't coincidence Nusku attacked right when he did.

Murder the Hypotenuse, huh? That's some seriously Yandere shit there. and yet...I don't mind.
And we must not rule out the possibility of Sekhenun using us and then stabbing us in the back, honorable and trusting idiot that we are. For all we know she's just suppressing her powers.

 

[Bloodshifter]

A so far sek has not done us wrong and if elem wants this guy dead I say we give it him

 

[TOME]

A

I don't think B will work. Edem spotted us in an instance so ambushing will likely fail. Let's just hope we can pull miracle out of our ass.

 

[Storyfag]

Esquilax, terrifying creature of the Abyss: a horse, with the head of a rabbit and the body... of a rabbit.

Beware its... deadly arguments?

 

[Tigranes]

There can only be A.

 

[CappenVarra]

Uhm, this will end well. But hey, immortality is grand...

 

[Baltika9]

Uhm, this will end well. But hey, immortality is grand...

But hey, we're TEH EMRAH! And TEH EMPRAH does not need information. To suggest otherwise is HERESY!
In case this does backfire, I am making a request for a headstone engraving: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh E'an Sume'ria wgah'nagl fhtagn"

 

[m4davis]

A

 

[Computer Gamer Refugee]

Voting A

I have not seen a Gioleth lie yet.

It just pisses me off a bit that if the hivemind had not gotten all manly and decided to swing their dick around (honorblade) and lock up our powers earlier we could be here now with both blade and powers intact.

 

[Quetzacoatl]

A

 

[ScubaV]

A

Right now helping Sekhenun is also giving us a decent support network to eat people and get our powers up to snuff. Quid pro quo. But I think at some point in the future we're going to need to demand answers from her before we finish the job. Remember, she never did help us get our powers back (through no fault of her own, but that's beside the point). We have no obligation to her and we don't want to be a blind weapon wielded by someone else all the time.

 

[Esquilax]

“I don’t have the luxury of taking three hundred year beauty naps. At any rate, I really couldn’t sense you. It’s strange. You’re standing in front of me, but you’re not there psychically…”

The old man sighs and scratches his bald head. He walks out in front of Nusku slowly, deliberately, and scans the crowd. The moment his eyes meet yours, you feel a tingle in your mind.

There you are.

treave, how does our "psychic blank" status work? We're "not there psychically", but Edem can still talk to us telepathically and I'm assuming read our minds as well. I'm assuming that this ability we have just means that we don't give off a psychic signature that gives away our location, but that people can mindrape us and read our thoughts like they could before. Is that the case?

On another note,

Are your brains defective? Volunteer, walk away from here, and once we’re far enough you can do what you were supposed to do in the first place and take this irritating bastard’s life.

So... Gieloth have multiple brains.

Wishful thinking, but I hope that Gudersu's tribe tries to track us down and rescue us. Without any backup, I doubt that Edem can take on several hundred pissed off barbarians and Ean at the same time. Nusku is a complete pushover, not worried about him.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

A - Knew the hidden one would go after the kids. G could have had the situation handled on his own. Should have gone with c. Oh, well.

I'm thinking Edem is Nabu somehow. That could explain how he found us so quick and why Nabu didn't try to strike at us after we dropped him in the pit - he was transferring his mind to Edem?

Voting A

I have not seen a Gioleth lie yet.

It just pisses me off a bit that if the hivemind had not gotten all manly and decided to swing their dick around (honorblade) and lock up our powers earlier we could be here now with both blade and powers intact.

Well, I guess we could have trusted Nabu to honor his deal to a point, but that was before we knew about Gieloth and their deals. Also, we're kinda using Marduk to off Greece and their "gods" so in a way it's a good thing we hadn't killed him back then. Given that and what the lack of info we had at the time, it was the best choice we could make - now saving Theseus on the other hand...

 

[treave]

Re: blank stuff

Yeah, you are undetectable, and a void. That doesn't mean you can't be affected by psychic mindfuckery, particularly if the user is strong and has visual or physical contact. Reading or scrambling your mind would be difficult, but doable. Now if you had shadow powers to boot...

 

[Baltika9]

By the way, if we get out of this alive, we really should dump this whole "honor before reason" shtick asap.

 

[Smashing Axe]

Well to be fair there are other reasons to choose A beyond honour, if the Gieloth isn't deceiving us, it's an opportunity for another hit and possibly two if we go turncloak.

 

[TOME]

By the way, if we get out of this alive, we really should dump this whole "honor before reason" shtick asap.

Honour makes these choices hard, which is definitely .

 

[Baltika9]

By the way, if we get out of this alive, we really should dump this whole "honor before reason" shtick asap.

Honour makes these choices hard, which is definitely .

I would rather we be "Marty McSmartcunty' than "Fucking Dead."
Just sayin'.

 

[Stygian Lurker]

A

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

By the way, if we get out of this alive, we really should dump this whole "honor before reason" shtick asap.

Agreed. We can no longer use "role-playing" Ean's honor as an excuse to make bad choices that require unreasonable self-sacrifice.

Ean has changed. He's no longer the naive young warrior he was when we started. He's been betrayed time after time - Sargon, Shulgi, Naram, Theseus - and this last betrayal literally turned him into a flesh-eating monster - albeit one with good intent. From now on he has to look after himself first. Maybe that will change once Marduk is dead and Ean's power returns, but until then the risks we take should be for our own gain.

I have no interest in seeing Ean dead and RPing some other immortal - until we get him killed too.

This choice is pretty reasonable so far tho: If he's lying and we ditch, then our new gutian allies will hate us for leaving, our plan is revealed/kaput anyway (as Edem knows about Sek and that we're immortal), and Marduk will hunt both Sek and us down. If he isn't lying then we'd have screwed up Sek's plan and pissed off the gutians for nothing.

 

[Esquilax]

Good points Lambchop19, but to be fair, I don't think Shulgi and Naram ever actually betrayed us. We were wary of Shulgi from the get-go and never allies, and it's probably more accurate to say that we betrayed Naram (but for very good reason).

By the way, if we get out of this alive, we really should dump this whole "honor before reason" shtick asap.

For sure. I don't think that Ean will ever get to the point where he becomes a power-hungry type a la Shulgi even with his hunger curse, but at this point he realizes that the occasional act of ruthlessness is necessary to prevent even worse shit from happening. We had no problem using Shulgi's cultists as a stepping stone in order to secure an alliance with the far more battle-ready and numerous Gutians because we knew it would be almost impossible to kill the lieutenants that would remain in Sumeria with only a small squad of troops. Jumping ship was a good idea.

But the problem with how we handled the situation here with the Gutians is that we weren't willing to take small loss in order to make a big gain. Gudersu is a good man and his tribesmen are all badasses, but sometimes we have to be okay with taking losses if we know that there's a bigger problem to deal with. The odds against Marduk are very long (and we've played well so far), so we really have to be dispassionate and even ruthless if we are to stand a chance at beating him.

In this case though, the "honorable" choice also is the smart one. Edem had no problem picking Ean out of a crowd, so running at this point would be foolish. We had our chance to go after him, that window of opportunity has closed. I am pretty certain we'll be okay in the immediate future based on the facts at hand: Edem set this whole thing up so he could deliver Nusku to us an a silver platter, and we've figured out the Gieloth obligation towards deal (they're quite Lawful Evil), so we can ascertain that Edem's deal very likely isn't bullshit.

The upside is the Gutians will adore us: Gudersu owes us a life-debt, and now that we've offered ourselves up to save his family, he'll make efforts to rally more of his people to assault Sumeria. If we have the opportunity to get away from Edem in the near future and possibly sneak up on him, we should take it.

 

[Baltika9]

(they're quite Lawful Evil)

Hell, I still don't consider them evil, as survival in and of itself is not evil, even if it antagonizes groups against one or the other. Most of them are raging douchebags that absolutely must be kicked in the nuts a couple of times to remind them exactly whose Terra they're fucking with(same deal with the Masters), but after that we should find a cure for them, asap.

One, because that will win us a whole race's loyalty. Two, because said loyalty will help us to kick the Masters' teeth in and three, the sooner they are cured, the sooner they and the Masters will be off our planet. Four, because newcomer and I want some lulz.

 

[Storyfag]

(they're quite Lawful Evil)

Hell, I still don't consider them evil, as survival in and of itself is not evil, even if it antagonizes groups against one or the other. Most of them are raging douchebags that absolutely must be kicked in the nuts a couple of times to remind them exactly whose Terra they're fucking with(same deal with the Masters), but after that we should find a cure for them, asap.

I'd be wary of making generalisations for ALL Gieloth. Keep in mind that those found on Terra are "going native". I bett Ean could begin relating to them only due to their assimilation of human values. In our early meetings the Gieloth felt inherently alien and just plain wrong. We should remain highly suspicious of the Gieloth civilisation at large. Better err on the side of caution.