>>151258

Old Thread here.

And I suppose I should start explaining some of those terms.

An Unwoven Coadjutor is the demon that gives the Infernal it's Exaltation before turning itself inside out and enveloping the Infernal in a chrysalis to properly install stuff.
After that, it hangs around in the back of the Infernals mind. Some are more talkative and friendly than others. Even the least talkative ones will still always chime in to reinforce your Urge, a specific motivation given to the Infernal by the Yozis to do stuff.

An Infernal can ignore the urge pretty easily, as seen above. The downside is that doing so accumulates Limit. There are certain ways to reduce Limit which are often needed, as a full Limit track means bad things happen.

The Willpower gauge is exactly as it sounds like, and reduces from one every time you go against the Urge. It's already been reduced due to your repeated use of Corrosive Pattern Infliction.
Willpower heals pretty easy, not really a thing to worry about.

And yes, I should really post a list of Charms that he knows and explanations for what they do and just get it all out of the way.
Eventually.

What's the deal on the name? Should we keep voting for it?

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.

It's too soon to start slinging mind-altering charms around, but it's not too soon to start building the foundation for emotional manipulation. For the moment though, we should hold off on charms because we understand little about this woman and her capabilities except that she can read us in some manner.

Excess hastiness is what leads to not-so-hilarious scenarios where the Greater Elemental Dragon of the Sun chases you around Creation as though a particularly stubborn puppy after a squeak toy. Great though very ironic if you're an Abyssal out to plunge Creation into ultimate darkness, but darn inconvenient and a real blow to your followers, your infrastructure, and your everything.

[x] Ask about her relationship with Komachi. Shikieki’s her boss obviously but what did they actually do? You still haven’t found out what shinigami even means yet.

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[x] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.
[x] Ask about her relationship with Komachi. Shikieki’s her boss obviously but what did they actually do? You still haven’t found out what shinigami even means yet.
[x] Ask her about what that godawful look of hers is. And the mirror as well. Might as well admit that you can feel it pressing against you.

All these things! All of them! In descending order of importance.

[X] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
-[X] Also possibly mention the giant tree you helped get off of her.
[X] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.

And doesn't it look like Shikieiki has a Weighted Companion Cube in the design on her desk in that picture?

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[x] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.
[x] Ask about her relationship with Komachi. Shikieki’s her boss obviously but what did they actually do? You still haven’t found out what shinigami even means yet.
[x] Ask her about what that godawful look of hers is. And the mirror as well. Might as well admit that you can feel it pressing against you.

This wagon, it was meant for me!

>>151839

Nah, it's been decided.

>>151845
Then what's his name, if you don't mind my asking?

>>151847

Current votes would lead to Nash or Nashar (I haven't decided which one I prefer, but hey Nash can just be the shortened version anyway), his title being the Damask-Petalled Lotus.

And this is probably going to be a double post because of fatal error, too.

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[x] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.
- [x] Begin secretly plotting to make Komachi one of your concubines, to reduce Limit.

[X] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.

We could also mention the tree, and lie a bit about how she was just helping him deal with suddenly being thrown into another world and lost in an unknown forest with no one to help, sob sob.
Besides, it's not completely untrue. Bitching about his boss with someone in a similar situation was a good way of dealing with the stress and finding a new "friend" (or at least as close as it gets for Infernals), who might have been able to explain things a bit more thoroughly than Daiyousei.
And then she got in trouble for that, that's just too sad. (Hint hint.)


Also, it should be pretty easy to guess some of who/what Shikieki is from a few of the tiny little details from the lecture that Komachi just recieved, like:
"It is my job to see and count all the sins of others".
It's not as if she cared about whether or not he was listening when she went into lecture mode. She didn't even notice that he was there until he grabbed the scythe, so odds are high that he heard everything.

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[x] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.

Stay focused, guys. We want our new drinking buddy back, right?

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[x] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.

Agreed - we're going to have to be focused on this.
Do NOT let her get out of this.
We can beat her in Social Combat, as long as we don't let her distract us.

And if we find out she's done something bad to her, it's time to work our magic if we can't convince her otherwise.
But not until we've tried the other stuff.

>>151838
Ignoring Limit, for Infernals, is even better than for most - because, to do so, you're required to act in certain ways.
Such as, say, tie someone up in a death trap, and monologue to them about just what your plan is (which could, I should note, be done against a thousand-year-old ghost who you are revealing your plans to save the local orphanage to), and other stuff.
All in all, ridiculously fun.

>>151870
I'll point out that one of the ways to reduce Limit is to plot to marry someone.

We're currently in Gensokyo, a land (almost) entirely populated by women. Do the math.

>>151888
Thread two and we're already talking about marriage?! Anon, You've got to wait until at least the tenth datethread!

[x] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[x] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question.

>>151888
>>151889
well, there's no rule that says the limit reduction only works once, and there's, like, plenty of eligible people in gensokyo.

although for once I'd like to see some　鬼畜 in the protag. seriously, if you can't pull that off with an Infernal, of all things, then it'll never happen and you're all pussies.

>>151889
Well, it's not like we're committing to one particular person, you know. You only get benefits for taking actions to actualize the marriage; once you've actually married them, you no longer benefit from Exquisite Bride Obsession unless you're pursuing someone else.

But building a harem of scantily-clad Touhou concubines is totally the sort of thing an Exalted god-king might do, especially one from the splat who are at heart Villains the way Solars are at heart Heroes and Abyssals are Anti-Heroes.

>>151891
Well, Golden Lies Tarnished Black can make for a very nice sex slave creation Charm if you have Want Becomes Need. . .

>>151893
Want to get all of the bitches? There's a appcharm for that apparently.

>>151893
Or Fervor-Driven Antagonism Technique if you want to be less mind-rapey about it. Using GYTB + Glories That Never Were + Want Becomes Need as well helps, though, on the off-chance they've already developed a relevant intimacy. Alternately, combine them for synergistic effectiveness.

>>151888
I was about to say that we really needed to make a good enemy here, since all the Limit-reduction methods involve behavior towards your enemies... but I'd forgotten about that one.

I think it also works if you encourage a (preferably unwise) marriage. savage you.

>>151898
It doesn't work for that - it's all about working towards getting married yourself.
It'd be a pretty strange Act if it would be about getting others married, honestly.

(Also, not all of the Acts require you to have one solid enemy - you can just as easily put a normal, mortal guy in a death trap, while you explain to him how you're planning on stopping his company from tearing down the orphanage, as an example, so it's not like we need any one enemy.)

>>151898
gather around everyone, let's all admire the morally superior yet anonymous moral guardian who, with the au-tho-ri-tah invested by the power of democracy, quantum physics and other neat stuff like that, speaks for 'the rest of us'!

oh, look, he called another anonymous person a creep. I bet he won't be taking it easy now. the shame!

>>151908
If you want to start threadshitting, go into /blue/.

>>151917
well, i know i speak for everyone who may or may not have given me permission to speak on their behalf when i say you should follow your own advice.

in other news, limit is basically the exalted equivalent of dnd wish, except you don't get anything and it happens more often. i hope anon has the good sense to do a partial break when the time comes.

>>151918
>limit is basically the exalted equivalent of dnd wish, except you don't get anything and it happens more often.

...how is limit anything like Wish, then?

Anyway, we're an Infernal, so we get Torment.

>>151921
well, you know how whenever you Wish for something that's not in the spell description, it's a free ticket for the DM to fuck you over?

Limit's like that, except it happens more often, it happens whether you want it or not, and you never actually get anything out of it.

This sure is an interesting conversation to interrupt.

[X] …Actually, I was the one who offered Komachi a drink in the first place.
[X] Good to know. Now ask her about what she did to Komachi. I mean, seriously. Press that question

You suck in your breath before taking advantage of her silence to speak. You’re not trying to convince her of much so it’s probably perfectly fine to use a little honesty.

“Actually, it wasn’t Komachi’s idea to sit down and have a drink. I offered it to her.”

You neglect to mention that while the drinks were your idea, Komachi was already taking an unsanctioned break beforehand. No need to muddle up a perfectly good truthful excuse with all the truth.
“If I hadn’t tempted her, she wouldn’t have done it. Hell, if I had known I wouldn’t have done it. But considering the size of that tree, I decided that she probably needed a drink.”

“A tree?”

Well, that worked.
“Yeah, whatever she’d been fighting had knocked her down and thrown a tree on top of her. She was still under it when I found her. It was damn big too. I haven’t seen much of this forest yet but it’d be easily the biggest tree I’ve seen here.”

Shikieiki looks at you quizzically.
“And where is this tree?”

You’d been anticipating this question.
“You can’t see it around. I didn’t fancy my chances of lifting it off of her so I destroyed it. You can see the remnants in all this rather obnoxious-smelling gunk.”

“I see. If this is an attempt to win my forgiveness for Komachi, it won’t work. This was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back. And any proper shinigami with the responsibilities appropriate to their station should have been able to turn down such weak temptation.”

You find your eyes narrowing somewhat at the unintended slight towards your old profession. Weak temptation? Sure, you’re a little out of practice and you never learned those Cecelyne Charms designed for them but you’re still pretty sure you could tempt the shit out of something.
Not that you want to. No. Of course not. Not at all.

“…I was expecting to be scolded a bit more, actually.”

“You’re a newcomer. How could I judge you for not knowing about this? It was up to her to have the integrity to refuse and continue her duties. And in the end, you reap what you sow.”

“Since you’ve been gracious enough to bring that up, what exactly did you just do to her?”

“Didn’t you hear me the first time? I fired her.”

You don’t bother to dignify that with a response. She knows full well what you’re asking about and she’s skirting around it. After an awkward silence, Shikieiki continues

“The disappearance was because few living beings can cross to the far side of the Sanzu, those shores that are meant for the dead alone. Because of this, Shinigami are dead souls, suspended from the normal consequences of death and afterlife by the vital role they play. Or at least, the vital role they should be playing, rather than slacking around and pursuing their own amusements. The afterlife is not a toy.”

She seems ready to fall back into a muttered rant but you quickly interrupt.

“So Komachi is dead now?”

“She was already dead to begin with. For the purposes of this conversation however, you can consider her deader.”

“And she’s being…”
You don’t actually know about the afterlife here, beyond that dead spirits cross something called ‘the Sanzu’, implied to be a river or other body of water. And that shinigami aid them? And do other things like get beaten up in forests? Also undefined judgement of some sort, which is entirely alien to you as an afterlife concept.
In the end you just hazard a guess, the only two afterlives that you know of.
“ Made a ghost? Reincarnated?”

‘There’s a lot of possibilities. And none of them will matter until I fly back to the Higan and judge her properly in person, as a former shinigami deserves. Oh Komachi…even now you always end up making trouble.”
She lets out a slow groan before burying her face in her hands.
“It’s always hard to let someone go. She was a lazy irresponsible wastrel who repeatedly squandered her position and wasted her potential but… ”

“But that isn’t a no to reincarnation? Reincarnation is a thing here?”
Your mind is too busy backtracking. Reincarnation from where you came from is a terrible fate, the gentle tides of Lethe wiping all identity clean and eradicating the person entirely before sending on the cleaned soul to be reused. It is the true death that lies after death, the complete annihilation of self.

“Yes and she’s a likely candidate for it. Probably as something that involves a lot of hard, laborious work.”

Damnit. You were getting to like that girl’s company, though you can never really be sure if that’s you or the Kimbery Charms making that decision for you. No matter what cause, a slow feeling of dread starts climbing it’s way through your guts.

[ ] Judging doesn’t happen until she gets back to wherever this Higan place is, right? There’s a very direct fashion that prevents that from happening, though you would despise having to go as far as killing anyone. Even just restraining her would work.

[ ] Mind-invasion is fine when it’s for a good purpose right? Initiate Glories That Never Were or Want Becomes Need (voters choice), either making Shikieki remember all the good things about Komachi that she never actually did or giving her an incentive to not send Komachi further into the afterlife. The choice really depends on how hard Nash feels like trolling.

[ ] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…

[ ] Pretend to leave but use Shade-Walker Prana to hide in Shikieiki’s shadow. After she arrives for judgement, enact daring escape plan for that girl you met a few minutes ago.

[ ] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

[ ] Write In

[x] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

>Also undefined judgement of some sort, which is entirely alien to you as an afterlife concept.
Well, there are the Mandala Accords, and the (mostly false) beliefs of the Immaculate Order about reincarnation. Also the Alchemical Exalted, whose Exaltations only catalyze if the soul used has possessed the correct sort of heroism over its past lives.

[X]Mind-rape time! Control over a goddess with such control over the process of reincarnation would be a valuable asset for us to gain. Valuable enough to offset the gain Komachi gets by avoiding being reincarnated.
[X]Activate Glories That Never Were *and* Want Becomes Need, with an intimacy of something like "Nashar (obedient love and devotion)".

[x] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

Direct Intervention: Tangling with the Yama is a BAD IDEA, even for an Exalted. We'd most likely get beaten, and nothing would be achieved.

Mind Alter: Trying to alter how the Yama sees someone's past? Yeahright.

Diplomacy: We might get info on just how things work around here, might be able to help Komachi and won't be doing something as stupid as fighting Shikieiki.

Rescue: Escape might prove difficult, what with lack of distance manipulation and such. Also, no guarantee that she wouldn't notice and just prevent us from interfering.

Walk Away: Really?

(In case it isn't obvious, I vote for trying to talk her out of it)

>>151925

Fair enough. It's more 'alien to you as a true concept'.
Alchemicals don't count as it's not that person being judged and rewarded for past deeds since that person still dies forever regardless of what he did.
Whether or not his cleaned soul is then placed into an Alchemical as an entirely new person probably doesn't matter to the deceased.

>>151928
Well, that's somewhat arguable. The Alchemical in question is just as much their past human lives as a Solar is his past incarnations. It's just that they're *also* all of their other past heroic lives, as well, and the degree that each life influences the Alchemical, and how much they can remember of them, varies from Alchemical to Alchemical, from "almost entirely a blank slate" to "near-photographic memory of multiple mortal lives" (based on the Eidolon background).

Of course, with Alchemicals, there's no *external* force judging the soul...

[x] Pretend to leave but use Shade-Walker Prana to hide in Shikieiki’s shadow. After she arrives for judgement, enact daring escape plan for that girl you met a few minutes ago.

[X] Pick Daiyousei up beforehand

[x] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…

Once again, attempting to meddle with someone that we don't understand and with our capabilities untested under local conditions is foolish. Not everything needs charms, sometimes a more mundane approach is better.

>>151923
Shade Walker Prana? Huh, wonder how many Abyssal charms the protagonist has picked up and whether he's learned Necromancy.

[x] Pretend to leave but use Shade-Walker Prana to hide in Shikieiki’s shadow. After she arrives for judgement, enact daring escape plan for that girl you met a few minutes ago.

Whether this would lead to a Komachi route or not, I'm for it. I like her too much to just see her vanish.

Admittedly, reincarnation might not be her fate, and she may end up returning to Gensokyou in a different role, but whatever. Impulsiveness go!

[x] "... hmm. Coincidentally enough, I could use a valet."
- [x] "And by 'valet' I may possibly mean 'comic-relief sidekick'."

Huh, we've got Shade-Walker Prana?
Nice.

>>151927
We are an Essence 5 Exalt, a Fiend at that (as in, one of the most powerful kinds of Exalts around).
Going up against the Yama is well within our capabilities, given that this is the point where you can defeat the Unconquered Sun.
If the judge of the dead is more badass than the guy who embodies goddamn perfection, I will eat my hat.

However, I agree with you, let's go with trying diplomacy - if that doesn't work, though, mindcontrol is coming up.

[X] Try (Ebon Dragon Excellency-fuelled) Diplomacy, convince the girl to give Komachi a break, or whatever we can.
-[X] IF that doesn't work, it's time for Glories That Never Were+Upgrades/Want Becomes Need, to make her bring Komachi back, but this is a last resort.

I'm pretty sure if we do this, we could count it as working towards one of our many Limit-reducing Acts.
Also, having Komachi owe us her continued existence?
That is pure gold, right there.

I think our Excellency-boosted manipulations should get us what we want.




Also, Drei, I really like this whole thing - thanks for running it for us!
Appreciate it!

>>151935
This guys vote is mine, adding on [x]Fight her as a very very last resort.

Are there any charms that we have that could make Shiki any weaker, so that's she's easier to beat? Or something to make us stronger? I'm not to familiar with this Exalted stuff, 'cuse my scrubness.

>>151935
Barring exceptional circumstances, a circle of Essence 5 Celestial Exalts with preparation can shank the Unconquered Sun and that depends on the Exalts in question.

I don't think that this Exalt is the fightiest Exalt out there and he has had absolute zero preparation. He knows little to nothing about the Yama's capabilities, his own abilities are not working properly at the moment, and he has no contingencies in hand to change the circumstances to his favor. The prize simply isn't worth the risk of fighting the Yama.

You're right though that we should focus on social-fu. Find out what the Yama wants and then use that as leverage to either get Komachi her job back or hire her as a minion. Any other choice is either too rash and risky (attack or hit her with mind-altering charms right off) or uninteresting (walking away).

>>151936
Lots and lots - though without peeking at the character's sheet, there're too many possibilities to be useful. He's got the Ebon Dragon and Kimberry as favored Yozis though, which probably means that he has some investment in their life-drain and poison charms. Furthermore, if push comes to shove, the protagonist can count on his Ebon Dragon perfect defense since it can only fail when used against Holy effects.

And before someone points out that a Yama probably counts as holy, that isn't the same thing as Holy. Holy in Exalted means drawing on the power and authoritative of the Unconquered Sun in order to burn someone or something on his personal shit-list. It has nothing to do with wielding moral weight as a weapon or whatever.

For example, you can be the most compassionate person ever and a Solar with the right charms can still condemn you as a Creature of Darkness and smack you with Holy effects. Hell, Solars can do that to one another.

[x] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

Nice meeting you, Shikieiki.

[x] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

You guys sure are quick to get attached.

[x] Ask her about what that godawful look of hers is. And the mirror as well. Might as well admit that you can feel it pressing against you.

She was surprised when we sensed her look. Perhaps a mutually illuminating conversation is in order?

[x] Ask what reincarnation entails in this universe.

We already know this place is strange, stands to reason its version of reincarnation might be different from what we're familiar with.

>>151944
Nah, it's more like we're angling to profit from a long-standing issue that has come or is coming to a final decision at this time. It costs us very little and gives us a shot at befriending some of the locals.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…

>>151949
That's a rationalization and you know it.

>>151934
See, I like this option.
We can combine that with the others, in the argument.

And, with any luck, we could bring Komachi back.
Shikieiki doesn't seem to want her, after all, so we might as well employ her.

>>151936
Nah, it's fine, don't worry about it.
Anyway, yeah, there's plenty of fun stuff we can do, to power ourselves up here.
For one, there's these things called "Shintai" Charms, which basically lets us enter "Boss Mode"/"Break In Case of Apocalypse Mode", so if things really go bad, we've got some options there (but we really should try and not use that).

The Ebon Dragon's also got some fun Charms, that can be used to weaken enemies, if we need to go with that.
You can, for instance, easily reduce the competence of anyone you care to mention, if you're willing to spend the power.
That's a fairly basic magic, for a Fiend.

>>151937
Is why I said we should work on social combat first, before trying any other option.
We should be able to run laps around this girl, socially.

And, yeah, >>151934 already mentioned a way to get her back, if Shikieki doesn't want her.

>>151944
Not really - we're just moving to get more allies here in this world, and having an ally whose existence you've literally saved is just perfect for that.

[x] Pretend to leave but use Shade-Walker Prana to hide in Shikieiki’s shadow. After she arrives for judgement, enact daring escape plan for that girl you met a few minutes ago.

>>151951
Not at all.

Going by Exalted logic, Komachi is a spirit, probably a fairly powerful spirit at that. In comparison, the humans in the human village are . . . well, mortals. Komachi is simply a more potentially useful ally to cultivate, not to mention that we've already been presented a rare opportunity to secure a favor.

>>151955
I agree, though I'm not quite as confident about our chances in social-fu against the Yama without learning more. Regardless, I agree with the opinion that our best choice is social-fu and then offering to hire Komachi as a minion if that avenue fails.

>>151956
If I understand correctly, if we use any more devil magicks, shit will start to glow making any attempt at stealth useless.
I may be wrong, though.

[x] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…
Let's at least try to get her a lighter sentence.

>>151961
I'm a little bit curious if we can leave Shikieiki with a positive impression even if we fail to persuade her to extend leniency to Komachi? Is she likely to have a higher option of a human who tries to help out someone that they've just met? Hm, I wonder if Shikieiki would be willing to play a game with us to decide Komachi's fate - something like Go or some kind of card game.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…

>>151935
Yes, it's canon that a Solar (Or Infernal/Abyssal) can defeat the Unconquered Sun or Yozi at Essence 5 or even lower, but NOT IN A SINGLE COMBAT!

Why is it people always forget the price of beating the Yozis?
1. Exploiting their Imperfections.
2. The amount of Dragon-Blooded armies needed to hold back the enemy's reinforcements.
3. The works Sidereals needed to do behind the scenes, like converting Demons to Gods.
4. The aid of Lunars provided in battles or leading the DBed.

AFTER all that, it is expected that it still requires a full circle of E5 Solars to be able to beat a Yozi remotely favoring combat. (As in, not Ebon Dragon as seen in Return), and it's still gonna be a bloody fight that probably ends up with more dead Solars than dead Primordial and there may be some extra nasty surprises. (When Gorol the first Akuma killed a Primordial, it costs him his sanity and the life of all 4 of his circle-mates)

Right here, our Fiend is alone, out of Personal mote pool, without any assistance of any sort like minions or powerful artifacts, in an alien plane-of-existence, and we are going against the Yama, which, in Exalted equivalent, is the Goddess of Afterlife, IMO no less than a Rank5 Celestial Goddess.

Ya, definitely not a good idea to fight her, so social route is the way to go.

"I am new here with absolutely no idea what the world is like, seeing that you don't want her anymore despite her knowledge and skills, perhaps you can let her act as my guide in this new world? I am trying to find a way back to my world too, so you can have her back when I got back."

If she accepts, bind the deal with your Fiend anima then proceed to stay forever in Gensokyo and never return to the shithole that is Creation.

something like that

[x] Forget about Komachi and stop making this your business. Wake up Daiyousei and get her to guide you to the goddamn human village already.

Well, I dunno about you guys, but I don't wanna latch on to the first route lock I see.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…
-[x] "... hmm. Coincidentally enough, I could use a valet."

[X] Heal Barrier.
[X] Bind a Spirit/Element to one of the Pot Metal Shields.
[X] Ask any of the fairies if they know where the miko Sakura is.
-[X] If none of them know, use any leftover free fairies (after you put together your battle plans) to search for her, and to tell her that someone is interested in potentially hiring them, and that you would be interested in meeting/discussing things with them at Yuugi's Bar tomorrow.
[X] Station Shiina Piesnatcher in FC/OH 3. Keep Devia Spathe stationed in LVIII. Make plans to switch Shiina out when you get another territory in the Fire Chambers of the Old Hell, as LVIII will likely become contested territory at some point due to it being close to Sunny's territory.
[X] Make plans to visit the Blacksmith to discuss the plans/prices for 'shackles', and if you have any time, Pedro's to get the location of Lopez's shop.

[X] Equipment Plans to Be Filled In Later.

[X] Battle Plans to Be Filled In Later.

Sounds good.

>>151977
That must be embarrassing.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…
-[x] "... hmm. Coincidentally enough, I could use a guide."

Man, with there being 4 options to help Komachi and one to leave her, the helping Komachi vote is split.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…
-[x] "... hmm. Coincidentally enough, I could use a guide."

I mean, it's not like we weren't trying to get her to do some guiding when Shiki condemned her to death reincarnation, right?

[ ] Mind-invasion is fine when it’s for a good purpose right? Initiate Glories That Never Were or Want Becomes Need (voters choice), either making Shikieki remember all the good things about Komachi that she never actually did or giving her an incentive to not send Komachi further into the afterlife. The choice really depends on how hard Nash feels like trolling.

Mind invasion for a good cause.

Mind invasion might be good, but it costs a lot of motes and right now we are all out of Personal Pool, so this makes us glow...

Not exactly a good way to go if we want to keep on low profile and avoid drawing suspicion from the Yama...

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…

>>151998
Keeping a low profile is boring. Mind invasion FTW.

>>152037
Pissing off the Yama is bad. Her rod of remorse weighs as much as our sins as judged by her framework. And I'm pretty sure doing generic work for the Yozi counts as a sin. In addition, there are a lot of bad things the Yama can do to us if she catches us lying and/or trying to manipulate her. Being sent to hell minus a tongue and eyes would suck.

>>152041
If nothing else, we should be able to use Loom-Snarling Deception to get out of that, assuming that we're not already unreadable thanks to being from another universe entirely and out of Fate even in that universe.

>>152042
Sure, there's the possibility that we won't be completely under the Yama's jurisdiction, but there's also the possibilty that the Yama gains jurisdiction over anyone in Gensokyo (outsiders and so on). And in any case, we'd be messing with someone who can easily beat a high tier reality-warper, someone with instakill abilities and someone with plothax armour all at the same time. It's possible, given how powerful Exalted characters tend to be, but given that we have little prep, we aren't at full power, and we aren't sure how Gensokyo is impacting on our abilities if something went wrong things could go bad. Really bad. Definitely hesitant to risk it, especially when there are other options available and there's the possiblity that this is all a misunderstanding of how the Reincarnation cycle works here.

>>152044
We wouldn't be using Loom-Snarling Deception to make ourselves outside of her jurisdiction, we'd use it to make ourselves metaphysically totally sinless and pure so her "smite sinners" powers utterly fail against us.

Besides, in a real fight with her, we'd probably want to use Black Mirror Shintai to copy her abilities, since she's got magic that works to full effect here and we don't. Probably after a gloating introduction about who and what we are and ending with "And the first lie the Ebon Dragon ever told? Was that he existed at all. Now, behold my ultimate power, Black Mirror Shintai!"

>>152044
While I disagree with this assessment of the Yama's capabilities (I read Yukari's statement as being more ambiguous than what seems to be the popular interpretation), I absolutely agree with the sentiment that fighting something unknown while being both unprepared and in an unreliable state is unwise.

Sometimes it seems that charms cause a 'pound everything because you've got a hammer' problem - just because you have the tool doesn't mean it's the most suitable one for every occasion.

I really don't understand why so many people seem to think that a Yama (even if not >Yukari) would somehow be vulnerable to mind control.

She's what? 6000 years old? A vital component of the judgement and processing of the dead? Really freaking powerful?

Even if the MC is a badass, his powers have been shown to be toxic and unreliable. It could very well be interpreted as an attack (which is probably better than being caught trying to alter her mind) and that isn't going to help Komachi.

Mind Control may be quick and easy, but if summoning up memories of Komachi being good would change her opinions, it is also unnecessary. Just use the freaking mouth-words.

Also, MC seems to be trying to be a good guy. Mind Control is as close to doing evil as you can get without a puppy-catapult and a morning-star.

>>152055
Just because he's not outright acting evil doesnt make all his intentions pure.

>>152055
Her origin is stated as being a Jizou statue - she's at most a little less than 1.5 millennia old.

>>152055
Charms are not outright Mind Control/Rape for the most part. They are being inhumanly good at convincing things.

>>152065
The Golden Years Tarnished Black tree pretty much is, though. What I want to know is if he's got the upgrade charm that allows it to enhance written attacks and put it in a Combo with Chirality Prohibition Technique, so he can turn an entire city into a giant mind-rape beam.

[X] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…
-[x] "... hmm. Coincidentally enough, I could use a guide."

This seems good enough for now.

Drei is dead

>>152150
>doesnt update for a week

Holy shit he must be dead, just like Sukima and Lion, and every other writer who hasnt updated in the past week!

Not dead, just so very pissed off. Had to forgo internet for a time due to heating up of real life business.
Am currently attempting to drink troubles away.

Against my better judgement, I wrote this update while still feeling woozy. Probably shouldn't be writing but hey, waited too long already. I'm going to need to come back tomorrow to see how much it sucks from a sober viewpoint though.


[x] No! Bad Nash! No violence or mind-alteration Charms. Just try to talk her out of it, or at the very least find a better fate for Komachi that doesn’t require reincarnation. I wonder how ghosts work here…

“Well, how about that.”
You sit down next to her heavily. She looks up at you in surprise before leaning away slightly. You pretend not to notice.

“I don’t suppose you could tell me her about her? And what she does? What you do? This is all really new and strange to me.”

Her expression shifts as she nods in understanding.
“Gensokyo used to get a lot of outsiders, though the numbers have dropped a lot recently. I keep forgetting about how hard this must be for you.”

“Please. No need to spoil me on that account. I’ve already met some friendly locals to help me.”
You make a hand gesture indicating the sleeping Daiyousei. Just briefly though, it looks as if your gesture was to go on, encompassing somebody who wasn’t there. Any sign of this is a mere twitch at best, reining itself in quickly.
“But I still don’t understand a lot of stuff that just happened.”

“I suppose it’s only right for me to explain. Lack of understanding can be fatal for outsiders.”
She stops for a bit, as if thinking on how exactly to go on. You imagine that she rarely meets an outsider before their apparently typical tragic accident. She doesn’t seem to have much of an idea on how to go about this.

“That girl you met was a shinigami. Shinigami have two jobs. There are those who guide the souls of the dead past the Sanzu, the river that borders the afterlife. And then there are those who have to reap unruly and troublesome souls who have passed their time, along with punishing those with deviant false forms of immortality.”

“And you’re Komachi’s boss?”

She winces very faintly, nearly completely beyond perception.
“…Yes. I am the Yama of this district. It is my job to judge the dead and consign them to their deserved fates.”

“Really? And what are those?”

“There are the Heavens and Hell, of course. They go without saying. There is also Hakugyokurou, a secluded realm for ghosts and r-reincarnation.”

You keep your expression the same. So Hell here is actually a place where people are sent to? As truth? How wonderfully bizarre. Maybe you should find the time to visit at some point, just to revel in the absurdity.
There are some disturbing implications of a cosmic morality at work though, which may need to be investigated later.
For now, you just keep up your worried ‘I’m-new-and-also-anxious-about-that-nice-lady-who-just-vanished’ smile and nod
“Reincarnation? That’s the one that you sent Komachi to, right? What exactly is it like? How do your actions effect the results?”

“Yes, that’s the one. And I don’t think I have time for a detailed explanation anymore.”

You make a noncommittal grunt and stay silent for a few seconds. Shikieiki looks up at the sky, her expression a cipher.
It would appear that she does not appreciate the conversation being innocently prompted back to Komachi. Which is just fine by you.

“…So what was she like? Komachi. I had only just gotten to know her. What is she going to end up as?”

“I can’t do any proper judgement until…oh, fine. She was lazy, irresponsible, insubordinate, careless…”

Two Minutes Later

“…undutiful, alcoholic and…and…”
She stops, her stoic façade having been stripped away by the opportunity to rant in a sympathetic ear.
“…a friend.”

You figured. It had been easy to see straight from the start. Nobody can be so horribly disappointed in someone they don’t care about. If Komachi had been nobody of any emotional value to her, she would have merely been angry. And the guilt was going to keep driving her back to what she had done anyway, you just accelerated the process.
You imagine that this would have been a lot harder if Shikieiki had full possession of her faculties and was clear minded, but here you could simply be lazy and let her own emotions do most of the work.
Being the Yama probably doesn’t earn you a lot of friends and associates of your own and some part of you will always value those you can get. She probably cared a lot more for Komachi than she realised.

“Ugh…I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Don’t be too down on yourself. Wouldn’t she have fired long ago under any other Yama? That’s what you said before.”

“Yes, she would have. And if I had been doing my job properly, this would have happened a long time ago. But I kept letting her get away with it, even though I knew. I’ve been a failure in managing her just as much as she was a failure at being a shinigami.”

“Come on, now. That’s not true.”
Disagreeing at this point and offering the idea that they are a better person than they claim can have several effects. For those who are morally weak and irresponsible, they’ll seize on it and agree with you. But for those made of stronger (or just more self-loathing, either way) stuff, once they’ve already started self-condemning, it just makes them confront it more and by consequence, delve deeper into their own inadequacies.
You’re pretty sure that Shikieiki is the latter.

“No, you’re wrong. She was my responsibility, she always was. I knew what she was doing but I never did anything about it. All I did was lecture her, even though I knew that didn’t do anything.”
Guessed correctly, it seems. Good job, Shikieiki. You really are too nice of a girl.

She makes a sudden grab, startling you. Wrapping her hands around the wine jug you had left lying around in easy reach, she raises it to her mouth and takes a mouthful.
“Is this what it all tastes like?”

“Pardon?”

“Wine. I don’t really drink much and never wine. Too much pollutes the mind.”

“A little mental pollution isn’t an unwelcome thing, sometimes.”

She doesn’t respond, instead lifting the jug back to her mouth, drinking down the rest of the liquor in one long draught that lasts until her eyes are watering.
…Well. That was a bit more than you were expecting. Hopefully this doesn’t suddenly start going in any bad directions.

“This tastes like shit.”

“I’m told it’s an acquired taste.”

“Ech…Who are you, anyway?”

“Me? I think we’ve been down this road before. Man with no name, long and slow drink etcetera etcetera.”
You look at the rapidly worsening Shikieiki.
“Not much to drink anymore, though.”

“Nonono. Who are you? I can’t seeeee you right. Mirror showing blank…what does a green karma even mean?”

“You’re getting alarmingly drunk. This isn’t strong but drinking so much in one hit isn’t advisable, particularly if you don’t have the habit down. Better take it easy.”

“You can’t judge me…,” She’s already picked up a slur. “That’s myyy job. And it says that…”
She grapples with that engraved stick of hers before fumbling it entirely, letting it fall to the ground.
“Drinking on the job…I’m such a failure and…all the other Yama’s are going to knooowww!”
Her words lift into a shriek as she starts sobbing uncontrollably. It’s as if a dam has suddenly burst, dropping decades upon decades of restrained stress and anxiety in one go. You’re starting to get a very uneasy feeling that the course of the conversation has escaped control entirely and is heading out to strange new vistas.
“I don’t wanna go back to being a sta…a whatever! They can’t judge me! They have easy districts in the real world! They don’t know how fucked up governing Gensokyo is like! But they all have mirrors and next time they’ll see this. All of it!”

She stares off into the distance, her eyes completely unfocussed.
“Need to get my story straight. I need to go get Komaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa….”

She slowly slides off the log and lands on her face. Rather than standing up, she keeps her prone position and just floats herself upright.
“Let’s go. I’m…I’m stiiiilll good to fly. Grab on.”

She thrusts out a hand in your vague direction. This seems incredibly dangerous but is vaguely what you wanted to happen.

[ ] Throw caution to wind. Take her hand and accompany her to get Komachi. Leave Daiyousei where she is.

[ ] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

[ ] How ‘bout no? There’s no guarantee that she even remembers the way, let alone being capable of safely getting a passenger there. She’ll have to go alone.

[ ] Hell, you shouldn’t let her go alone either. She’ll probably do something amusingly terrible.

[ ] This is getting all too troublesome. Screw this. Just pick up Daiyousei and slowly drag her away, pretend that this never happened.

[ ] Write In

[X] Take her hand and accompany her to get Komachi.

I don't really care either way for outcries of "routelock" or "Komachi is mai waifu", but tagging along with a drunk Yama seems like the most amusing option at the moment, so I'm going for that.

As incredibly amusing as going with her would be, acquaintances don't let acquaintances fly drunk to their workplace. ... Why am I trying to be a goody two-shoes. Fuck it.

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

Hey Daiyousei, while you were passed out we took you to one of your many afterlifes. Hope you don't mind.

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

We need to get Shiki drunk more often.

[x] Throw caution to wind. Take her hand and accompany her to get Komachi. Leave Daiyousei where she is.

Drunk yama, just as planned.

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

[X] Take her hand and accompany her to get Komachi.

D'awww. Drunk Shikieiki is wonderful.

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

Adventure!

[X] Hell, you shouldn’t let her go alone either. She’ll probably do something amusingly terrible.

Admittedly, I'm not sure how this is different from the first option, but whatever.

[X] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

We must build a large cluster of drinking buddies, and then think of them as "concubines" or "a harem" or something to earn Villain Points with our Unwoven Coadjutor so the little bastard will stop annoying us with its rantings.

[X] Hell, you shouldn’t let her go alone either. She’ll probably do something amusingly terrible.

We need something to get violent on eventually. Hopefully something that doesn't put us on Reimu's Extermination List.

>>152286
It's the impotent remnant of a first-circle demon while we're a Green Sun Prince emulating the Ebon Dragon. Why bother placating the stupid thing when we can social-fu it until what passes for its mind is dripping out of its metaphoric ears?

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.

[ ] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you. She’ll probably do something amusingly terrible.

I think those two options are perfectly compatible and more amusing in the end.

>Why bother placating the stupid thing when we can social-fu it until what passes for its mind is dripping out of its metaphoric ears?

Because this way nets us a lot more drinking buddies, that's why.

>>152296
We can go make drinking buddies with random strangers regardless of the wishes and opinions of the thing in our head - particularly since it's neither interesting nor even all that bright.

>>152285

I probably should have clarified that. That option builds off the option that I wrote beforehand (the 'she can go alone' one) and is basically the 'stop her from going altogether' option.

[X] Accompany Shikieiki, bring Daiyousei.

Do we have any charms that will keep us from dying in the inexplicably flaming wreckage of a crashing Yama?

[ ] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.
-[] Stop to check if that goop has essence in it, it was made with essence so it may be different from local stuff. If it does take it with you as it may be useful later (such as to make other items out of without a huge drain on our reserves).

[x] Same as above, but find a way to take Daiyousei with you.


Doubts of her flying capacity aside, this is what you wanted to happen. More or less. So you don’t think for long before giving a shrug and nodding.
“No problem.”

As Shikieiki prepares for a more optimal take-off position, you nearly trip over Daiyousei. Well, you should take her as well. It would be just plain irresponsible if you were to leave her here, sleeping all alone. Of course, it is probably far more irresponsible to take her on a flight with a drunken deity of some sort without her knowledge or consent but you give that thought little heed.

“Are you good with taking an additional passenger? She’s pretty small.”
You prod her gently in the side with your foot but the fairy stubbornly remains in her stupor. Your foot moves to poking her face but the best you get even then is a small groan.

“I can take as many as I want! I’m the goddamn Yama!”
You earnestly hope that she isn’t going to fall into being a belligerent drunk during the flight. That would be just peachy.

“One problem though. She’s not waking up right now and while I can wake her immediately it’s going to be unplea-”

“Right! Let’s gooooooooooooooo!”

She starts unsteadily rising from the ground, apparently not realising that you and Daiyousei aren’t even with her yet. Or maybe she just forgot. She picks up speed, about to leave without you!

Thinking quickly, you take Daiyousei in your arms, cradling her small body against your chest as you leap out in front of the rapidly ascending Yama. Swinging your right hand out, you grab hold of Shikieiki’s arm just in time.
The world falls out from underneath you as Shikieiki zooms over the treetops, hopefully in the correct direction.

It’s an absurd situation. At the top of the formation is Shikieiki, who is flying in an unsteady yet mostly straight path. Dangling underneath her is yourself, hanging from one of her arms. Clutched to your chest with your remaining arm is Daiyousei, who against all probability, is still asleep.
Every time Shikieiki wobbles or makes any kind of turn, you feel yourself spin out wildly in an arc, the world spinning around you.
This is incredibly dangerous!

One sharp turn later and you feel Daiyousei go tumbling out of your grip. Her sleeping body begins to fall towards the forest canopy. Acting spontaneously, you reach up and grab Shikieiki by the scruff of her neck and pull her towards you, causing her flight to very immediately turn into a dive.

Zooming towards the ground at breakneck speed, you manage to seize one of Daiyousei’s legs, arresting her fall. This doesn’t stop Shikieiki though, who’s still diving!

“Pull up! PULL UP!”
You scream directly into her face as the canopy gets closer with every passing moment. Whether it was those words or her own common sense kicking it’s way back through her lack of sobriety that did it, you’ll never know. Regardless, she manages to even out just in time, all three of you soaring just above the treetops.

You’re still hanging on to her leg fortunately but Daiyousei is no longer anywhere near as secure as she used to be, dangling listlessly from your left arm. The three of you now form a chain, each one attached to the one above you. A bizarre formation at the best of times and is nearly inconceivably horrific considering that the top link of the chain is hurtling through the air at high speed, dragging the other two links behind her like a spinning pendulum.
“How are you still asleep! I mean…REALLY?”

Suddenly, the forest disappears from underneath you, replaced by a landscape of fields and buildings up ahead. The village?
A slurred yelp is your only warning before you all suddenly drop, Shikieki losing altitude at an alarming rate.
“What? What are you doing, you daft bitch! Get up! Up!”

She manages to stop her decline and evens out once again but this time she stays low to the ground.
A second passes and you are in the village. You can only catch quick glimpses but what you see seems nice enough. A small town, packed with people. Which turned out to be a real shame.

Shikieki flies above the buildings, having chosen a comfortable height for herself while apparently not taking into consideration that she had two people dangling below her.
You twist and turn like a madman, spinning yourself out of the way of several buildings. The force of Shikieiki’s drunken turns and your own manoeuvres cause Daiyousei to swing wildly in your hands.
Unfortunately, she is just low down enough to hit people.

What follows is an unwilling rampage through the townsfolk, the fairy’s comatose body swinging around like a mace, colliding with all and sundry.
You can’t see most of it but you can feel the force of every impact travelling up her body and into your arm. And what you can see isn’t encouraging.

Wham!
A villager is smacked against a wall from the impact, their nose broken.

Thunk!
An older gentlemen is sent sprawling as Daiyousei’s head slams into his chest.

Crash!
A fat man leaps for cover as the fairy collides with his market stall, smashing it to smithereens.

Whack!
A woman in a purple dress emerges from a house just in time for Daiyousei to complete her current arc and smash into the woman’s face, sending her flying back through the doorway.

Thwick! Thwack! Slam!
The fairy bounces off a brick wall and knocks a young man unconscious before continuing her rebound, collecting several other villagers along the way.

Smack!
A table is smashed into pieces, the brazier standing atop it knocked across the village square into a pile of hay. A great flame rises moments later.

Bam!
A man rises to his feet to put out the fire, only to be knocked back to the ground as Daiyousei swings low and inadvertently smashes into his groin.

You would have winced but you started screaming at some point and haven’t stopped. And those are only the bits and pieces you managed to see. From the feel of her in your arms, the fairy is laying waste to even more when you can’t look.
Any attempts you make of pulling her up only seem to lead to more destruction, the fairy being dragged through the screaming crowd like a scythe through wheat.

This is a- oh damn big stone building right ahead! You and Shikieiki will fly over it but Daiyousei won’t be so lucky.
Gritting your teeth, you swing your left arm out and up, just barely managing to send Daiyousei upwards before you pass over the building.

And that is when you notice a second scream, overlapping with yours. It would appear that Daiyousei woke up at some point during her annihilation of the villagers. She doesn’t appear to be in the best frame of mind either.
“AaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAARRRGGH WHATTHEFUCKKKK”

Swinging her upwards was no longer a great idea but alas, it had already been done. Her scrabbling limbs reach out and collide with Shikieiki, grabbing hold of the drunken Yama, deforming your formation into a triangle rather than a chain.

A fairy foot is planted directly into Shikieiki’s jaw, sending the world reeling around you as you all suddenly ascend, Shikieiki going into a spinning corkscrew as she does so.

For a period of time you continue through the sky like this, a triumvirate of three people all scrabbling and clawing at each other in an attempt to stay in the air while the world spun around you.
You don’t know how long it was, your sense of passing time being one of the first casualties.

Daiyousei attempted to just fly away once but she seems to be far too dazed to get her wings working, the remnants of the wine and the significant head trauma she indubitably took working a deadly combination.

Eventually though, you are manoeuvred into a position where you can look down without someone else getting in the way. You catch a glimpse of some fields like earlier and then a forest again but the spinning and the flailing stop you from getting details.
What is apparent is that you are all heading downwards yet again. Shikieiki seems unresponsive and has angled into a forty-five degree dive.

“UP! UUUUP!”
No answer. If anything the speed increases. You probably have a scant few seconds to make your choice.

[ ] Get off while you still can! Find a low point over a relatively safe area and leap off, using what Charms you can to make your landing easier.

[ ] Evacuate the Yama! Do the same as the above choice but take Daiyousei with you as well, cushioning her fall. It’s partially your fault that she’s in this situation in the first place and you’re not sure if she can fly in these circumstances.

[ ] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.

[ ] You might have time to activate two Charms quickly. Pull into Black Mirror Shintai and become Shikieiki’s evil twin. Use new flying powers to possibly save everyone, possibly make it worse.

[ ] Take Shikieiki’s hat and wave it around while laughing ala Doctor Strangelove

[ ] Write-In

>'Shikieki'

>'gentlemen'

Spellchecking beforehand is important.

[x] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
[x] Use any charms you have to slow the fall, or prepare to get hurt really really badly from when you'll hit the ground.

Because why not.

[x] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.

Presumably we possess a perfect defense that can prevent our face from being cratered in by the fall if worst comes to worst.

That was completely worth it. Poor Daiyousei, we could never have foresaw this.

[x] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
[x] Use any charms you have to slow the fall, or prepare to get hurt really really badly from when you'll hit the ground.

It's moment like these when some Adorjan magic would've been nice...
Or possibly She Who Lives In Her Name, with Ascendant Objectivity Stance...

Well, let's see what we can manage thus far!
[X] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
-[X] If that doesn't work, shield both of them with your own body, wrapping your arms around them.
-[X] Prepare to use Bitter Heart Unbleeding, to make sure you don't get take damage from the fall?

I'm open to other suggestions, if someone has them?
But this seems like the best chance we've got.

Use Fathomless Poison Haven on Shikieiki to get her out of the drunkeness.

How she reacts to this situation is gonna be...hilarious

[X] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
-[X] If that doesn't work, shield both of them with your own body, wrapping your arms around them.
-[X] Prepare to use Bitter Heart Unbleeding, to make sure you don't get take damage from the fall?

[x] No we're not crashing today! Use Fathomless Poison Haven on Shikieiki to get her out of the drunkenness and hope she remembers how to fly!.
-[x] Prepare emergency landing procedures, just in case.
Seems good. I don't know much about exhalted but alcohol is a poison and the charm is one of Kimberly's which was said to be our favored yozi, so we should know it and it should work.

[x] No we're not crashing today! Use Fathomless Poison Haven on Shikieiki to get her out of the drunkenness and hope she remembers how to fly!.
[x] Prepare emergency landing procedures, just in case.

This could be funny, or very bad (remembering how seriously Shikieiki takes her job and title and everything).

> A woman in a purple dress emerges from a house just in time for Daiyousei to complete her current arc and smash into the woman’s face, sending her flying back through the doorway.

Did we just smash Yukari in the face?
I think we just smashed Yukari in the face.

[X] Take Shikieiki’s hat and wave it around while laughing ala Doctor Strangelove.

>>152332

Brilliant deduction sir, of course we should have realized that Yukari is the ONLY person in Gensokyou who has the authority to wear a purple dress.

[x] No we're not crashing today! Use Fathomless Poison Haven on Shikieiki to get her out of the drunkenness and hope she remembers how to fly!
-[x] Prepare emergency landing procedures, just in case.

>Fathomless Poison Haven

Is a Kimbery Charm and thus moves on her themes. Kimbery is spiteful and will only save what she loves, until what she loves inevitably fails to live up to her impossible expectations.

Fathomless Poison Haven can cure any poison effect but can only be performed on people you have a positive Intimacy (ie friendship or something) for.
Nash has no such thing for Shikieiki.

He could do it to Daiyousei and was going to do so before Shikieiki interrupted and nearly took off without them. This is because Nashar has Trust Is Naive, the Charm that emulates Kimbery's willingness to fall in love with all only to bitterly slay them when they let her down and break her heart.
It allows him to build a positive Intimacy for the purposes of Kimbery Charms after only one scene of positive interaction, letting him make friends easily, even though having All Things Betray as well means he will never entirely trust them.
So he could do it to Daiyousei or Komachi but not Shikieiki. That's why I didn't include it as an option.

Should really post his Charmlist and explanations for all of them soon. Maybe as a celebration if we ever reach a third thread.

[X] Evacuate the Yama! Do the same as the above choice but take Daiyousei with you as well, cushioning her fall. It’s partially your fault that she’s in this situation in the first place and you’re not sure if she can fly in these circumstances.

Daiyousei sees likable so far, and you got her into this. You may as well get her out. And you could do worse then to do her a favor, as she's been the most constant help you've had so far.

[X] Evacuate the Yama! Do the same as the above choice but take Daiyousei with you as well, cushioning her fall. It’s partially your fault that she’s in this situation in the first place and you’re not sure if she can fly in these circumstances.

Daiyousei sees likable so far, and you got her into this. You may as well get her out. And you could do worse then to do her a favor, as she's been the most constant help you've had so far.

>>152340
But Bitter Heart Unbleeding would work, right?

>>152344

Yes. It will prevent all damage from affecting you.

x] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
-[x] Use any charms you have to slow the fall, or prepare to get hurt really really badly from when you'll hit the ground.

>>152340
Quick attachments and paranoia. This guy is THP incarnate.

[X] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
-[X] Use any charms you have to slow the fall, or prepare to get hurt really really badly from when you'll hit the ground.

>>152340
Yeah, but we've got time for two Charms, right? Tragic Love Amusement go!

>>152350
Don't even need to use a charm. Just declare "This scene? This scene counts as a scene towards building a positive intimacy towards Shikieki." Given the heart-to-heart we had earlier, this is perfectly reasonable, IMO.

[X]Fall in love with Shikieki.
[X]Fathomless Poison Haven!

[x] No, we're not crashing today! Use Fathomless Poison Haven on Shikieiki to get her sobered up and hope she remembers how to fly.
-[x] Prepare emergency landing procedures, just in case.
-[x] If the charm fails to operate, grab her hat and wave it in a circle while loudly shouting "WOO!", like in that one story with the Creation-destroying doomsday device and the mad Solar general and the flying ships carrying city-leveling bombs.

>>152350

This is not a thing you have, unfortunately.

[X] The Captain goes down with his…flying…deity…thing! Stay with Shikieiki and see if you can get her to pull up and slow her own fall. Prepare for very fast and very hard landing if all goes wrong.
-[X] Use any charms you have to slow the fall, or prepare to get hurt really really badly from when you'll hit the ground.


You flip your legs up, hooking them around Shikieiki in mid-air. Flipping yourself up, you take a crouched position sitting atop of her. She’s still unresponsive. Wasting no time, you grab her shoulders and twist, attempting to point her in another direction.

For a few moments this works. She angles upwards again, beginning to level out. The ground starts swinging away from you. You start to breathe a sigh of relief.
Only for a sudden jolt to dislodge your footing.
Your hands go into a mad scramble over Shikieiki as they seek a handhold. Thankfully, she still seems far too zoned out to notice some of the accidental consequences of this.

After grabbing hold, you find yourself dangling from the side again. Brilliant. And your renewed weight has caused her to begin her downward spiral anew. AGAIN. Damnit, can’t she just steer by herself?

If nothing else, you’ve bought yourself some more time. Only a few seconds more but look on the bright side…There is no bright side. Unless you count getting to accidentally grope what is apparently a very major deity.
Which you don’t, due to it being both unintended and something you’ve done before anyway.

Right now you need to be figuring out just how you’re going to extricate yourself from this mess. Your own survival is guaranteed, it taking a lot more than a high velocity fall to hurt you.
But what about the others? You have no idea of either’s upper limits, no idea if they could take such a hit without being overly hurt.

Quickly now! Your thoughts are racing, impact being only seconds away. Bitter Heart Unbleeding is your own choice obviously, though using it to negate all damage with no ocean nearby will make it costly. But that only protects you.
What if …you got there before them, taking the impact for them, using Bitter Heart Unbleeding to nullify the damage to you and cushioning their impact?

…Unlikely. Even with you cushioning them, all it changes is that they’re hitting some soft at high velocity rather than something hard. At this speed it probably wouldn’t help.
You need to deploy something to slow the fall. Which would be trivial if you’d ever taken some Pyrian Charms but seriously, fuck She Who Lives In Her Name. Not after what happened last time.

You don’t appear to have any means to stop or slow the fall without impact. If only you could get Bitter Heart Unbleeding to apply to them or…hot damn! Speaking of Kimbery Charms!
It’ll protect you from taking damage; give the other two a very soft (albeit caustic) landing pad and most importantly, it’ll slow the fall.
Time to get your godbody on.

++(Willpower: 6/10)++

The air around all of you ignites in a harmless flame as you spend ten motes from your peripheral Essence, the uncontrollable core of your Exaltation, the third part of your soul. Its use is powerful but in turn, causes the truth of your condition to become more apparent with every mote of it you use.
The air around becomes smudged by your presence as your anima begins to manifest. A blank disc opens up in your forehead like a third eye.

And after a moment, it vanishes again as the effects of the Charm start taking place. You can feel your veins and arteries beginning to swell, ripping open at the seams. Your acidic blood runs free through your entire body, liquefying your physical body in a fraction of a second.
It is not destruction but transformation, as you revel in your new viscous liquid body granted to you by All-Devouring Depths Shintai.

You spray yourself down underneath Daiyousei and Shikieiki, your viewpoint expanding to a perfect 360 degrees vision as thousands of eyes burrow their way to the surface.
You extend several pseudopods, grabbing both of them in your oozing tentacles.

Having secured them, your body flattens out behind them like an immense, fluid parachute. A pair of immense Essence wings burst out of you, catching the air and forcing you into a glide.
This slows your fall immensely, though nothing you can do at this point will stop all of your from hitting the ground.

What then follows is a controlled crash landing. Most of you splatters upon contact, throwing droplets of yourself everywhere. This damages you only in the slightest though, as you reform just as quickly.
Your tendrils shield Daiyousei and Shikieiki, giving them a soft landing. You then immediately drop the two of them, as the tentacles are as acidic as the rest of you. Fortunately the time of contact was short and both of them appear to have only suffered minor blistering.
Hell, their clothing is only barely damaged and you usually sink through cloth like a hot knife like butter in this form. You must be getting better at control than you realised.

All in all, you were pretty lucky. Particularly since you have absolutely no control over where you would have been landing. You’d been somewhat afraid you’d land somewhere like a forest or a village or some other place equally troublesome. But luck is with you and you have landed in a vast and uninhabited flower field.

Shikieiki is unconscious, though you doubt it was the impact that did it, given the way she had just started dropping like a stone in that last bit.
Daiyousei is very awake by now and is no doubt incredibly confused.

You ooze your way closer to her, your body dissolving the nearby surroundings as you do so.
Daiyousei looks up to see a vast …thing towering over her. A giant mobile blob of green-black ichor ringed by five tentacles, each one fifteen feet long. Brief flashes of other things pass over its mottled flesh, patches of scales and fur, thorn and talon. The air around it is thick with a smudged whirl of colours, dark greens, purples and blacks. A pair of giant bat wings beat slowly behind it, pale dripping things with green fire flowing through their veins. Countless eyes cover the surface of its entire body, being dissolved and regurgitated constantly.

With a sound like two slabs of meat slapping together, the flesh of the thing closest to her splits, forming a mouth ringed with perfect human teeth.
“Daiyousei. …It’s not what it looks like, I swear.”

She stares at you gaping for a few more seconds before her eyes roll back into her head, her brain deciding to just take a holiday until she stops waking up halfway through depopulating a village and then being confronted by a giant ooze monster.
You can’t say you blame her.

You shift your bulk again uneasily, laying waste to another stretch of flowers. Man, that’s gonna look ugly later on. Like a giant acidic slug burned a path through the field.
Which is remarkably accurate, all things considered.

You have no idea how much closer you are to this Higan place but on the upside, Shikieiki sure won’t be doing any judging any time soon anyway. Count your victories.

[ ] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.

[ ] While you wouldn’t usually pass up a chance for some relaxation, you should wake them up now. You cannot think of an actual good reason why you would do this now beyond the simple joy of annoying people.

[ ] Maybe you should grab them again and drag them somewhere else. You’re not sure where there is to go though.

[ ] Write In.

Also! A second choice about what to be doing with your current Shintai form while you do whatever action the first choice decided.

[ ] Tekeli-li! Keep it on for now. It’s useful in a myriad of ways.

[ ] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

>flower field
shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit

Wait, if we turn back and wake them up we'll have allies, not to mention that's probably the thing to do given what Nash knows.

[x] Stay in blobform and destroy as much of the flower field as you can.
[x] While you wouldn’t usually pass up a chance for some relaxation, you should wake them up now. You cannot think of an actual good reason why you would do this now beyond the simple joy of annoying people.
-[x] You have no idea as to the whereabouts of any alleged blob monster.
[x] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

[x] While you wouldn’t usually pass up a chance for some relaxation, you should wake them up now. You cannot think of an actual good reason why you would do this now beyond the simple joy of annoying people.
[x] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

Saints, he has Black Mirror Shintai and All-Consuming Depths Shintai? I wonder which of the Intolerable Burning Truths he has internalized?

Oh well, that didn't go so ba- "you have landed in a vast and uninhabited flower field" well...bugger. I'm hoping that this Yuuka is the canonical slighly-creepy-but-still-sane-and-polite Youkai rather than Imperfect Metamorphosis' Lovecraftian Abomination.

On a random note, we really seem to be running into the high-danger areas, don't we...

In any case,
[x] Wake our companions up now.
[x] Back to humanoid form.

I'm a bit nervous about lying about the blob monster. Firstly, we'd have an awake Yama behind us when we lied, and secondly depending on how Yuuka is characterised she might already know and only be asking to see if we are honest or not.

[X] While you wouldn’t usually pass up a chance for some relaxation, you should wake them up now. You cannot think of an actual good reason why you would do this now beyond the simple joy of annoying people.
-[X] Fall in love with Shikieki, then use Fathomless Poison Haven to clear the alcohol from her system.

[X] Tekeli-li! Keep it on for now. It’s useful in a myriad of ways. Like if anyone gets pissed off about you levelling their flower field.

>>152358
Who said it's the sunflower field?
It could be the area near the Sanzu or Medicine's field.

>flower field
>we're currently an acidic creature who is burning away the flowers

Let's...
Let's drop the Shintai for now, guys.
If we get into a fight, we can use a better Shintai for it - like Black Mirror Shintai, and become Yuuka, if she wants to horribly kill us, or something.

Here's to hoping she's reasonable, so we can negotiate, though.

[X] While you wouldn’t usually pass up a chance for some relaxation, you should wake them up now. You cannot think of an actual good reason why you would do this now beyond the simple joy of annoying people.
[X] Decide you like the Yama - you've saved her life, so obviously she's likeable and she's also kind of cute!
-[X] Use Fathomless Poison Haven on her
-[x] When you wake both of them up, take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

>>152358
>On a random note, we really seem to be running into the high-danger areas, don't we...
I fully expect us to crash, face-first, into Kanako's bosom, eventually.

And, given that we've talked about Hell, wouldn't surprise me if we somehow ended up groping the woman in charge of that place, for some reason.

>Nothing’s going to be attacking you
Oh you.
That said, I don't really like obvious meta-votes (but since you know this would be a meta-vote, you'd put the poison in the goblet in front of me), so.

[X] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.
[X] Maybe you should grab them again and drag them somewhere else. You’re not sure where there is to go though.

The acid is getting slightly in the way, and moving them is better than leaving them in a scar of acid-burnt ground/crash site at least.


>>152358
If she is a lovecraftian abomination, then with our current form we are a match made in heaven the unknowable infinite depths of the abyss that man was never meant to gaze up lest he lose what little sanity he may still have. Iä! Iä! Cthulhu ftagn!

I'll point out that Bottomless Depths Shintai allows the free and unrestrained acquisition of mutations. It should be simple enough for us to assume a humanoid form without dropping the Shintai. We'd just need to give ourselves the Extra Arms, Extra Legs, and Extra Head mutations along with the appropriate size-alteration mutation, and get all the tentacles to sprout out of the back of our head so we can pass them off as hair.

Granted, we'd still be made of black-green acid and covered in eyes, but it's still better than being a shoggoth for social purposes while still retaining the benefits of the charm.

[X] While you wouldn’t usually pass up a chance for some relaxation, you should wake them up now. You cannot think of an actual good reason why you would do this now beyond the simple joy of annoying people.

Given that we have absolutely no idea whether or not this place is Garden of Sun...and even if we do, our little Fiend won't know what it implies so...

[X] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.


Also, out of character knowledge, I think our Infernal has the worst two Shintai Charms for fighting Yuuka, Black Mirror Shintai doesn't work on beings of higher Essence rating or even just beings significantly more powerful than its Essence rating indicates, which means mimic Yuuka is probably straight out the window, not to mention a simple Anti-Shaping Charm is all that takes to stop it even if none of the above apply.
All-Devouring Depth Shintai helps in a fight, yet while it certainly helps corroding Yuuka and her flowers, it offers little to no protection to ourselves thanks to it's weak to heat and energy (Essence) based attack, eating a Dual Spark in the face is gonna hurt.

And if we go for the Lovecraftian Outer God version of Yuuka in Imperfect Metamorphosis...let's pray Nash has Racing Vitaris and start running like hell.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.
[x] Tekeli-li! Keep it on for now. It’s useful in a myriad of ways.

Daiyousei, Shikieiki, and Yuuka all have green hair. I'm on to you!

Sure is Yuuka metaknowlege in here.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.

[x] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.

[x] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

We don't know where the heck to go anyway, might as well let them sober up a bit.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.

[x] Maybe you should grab them again and drag them somewhere else. You’re not sure where there is to go though.

Also, you might want to hide, and hide them, from any human village sourced lynch mobs.

[x] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

>>152362
>That said, I don't really like obvious meta-votes (but since you know this would be a meta-vote, you'd put the poison in the goblet in front of me), so.

Yeah, I knew this was going to be a metavote, to the point where I was seriously thinking I should just not include this as a choice and just have Nash make the choice himself.

But in the end, I decided that might start a lynch mob or something if I removed agency at that point.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.
[x] Tekeli-li! Keep it on for now. It’s useful in a myriad of ways.

There's really no way t avoid using meta-knowledge, it just comes with being interested in the setting.

That said, if this IS the Garden of the Sun, then shits about to go down.

You know, I'd kind of like to make this up to Yuuka, somehow - maybe we can go and buy her some sunflower seeds from the village, when this is done?
Planting them would be better than just ruining this area, and then leaving, I think.
Just because we've got Ebon Dragon magic, doesn't mean we shouldn't do our best to be better than that (if only to spit the Dragon in the face)

>>152364
Our situation isn't really that bad, I think.
Yuuka wouldn't really be throwing Holy stuff around, so we've got some magic from the Ebon Dragon to use, for our defense, such as Bloodless Murk Evasion, if she does attack (really hoping she decides not to, of course), so Kimbery's Shintai isn't that bad given that we can avoid the really big stuff.


Anyway, dropping the Shintai makes sense, no matter how you look at it.
We don't want our 2 new friends/travelling companions to wake up to see a massive acidic eye-covered creature hovering above them (and we can't really reliably stop them from waking up to spot us, anyway).

>>152363

You'd go from looking like a Shoggoth to looking like Alucard from Hellsing in his released state.
Much less frightening.

The Shintai is very malleable but it's never going to stop looking creepy. You could shrink down into a tiny chibi-Shoggoth that rides on people's shoulders and you're still going to look like Something That Should Not Be.

>>152393
Looking like Alucard from Hellsing? Sounds good to me. Alucard is awesome.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.

[x] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.

Let's see how long it takes for Reimu, Keine, and/or Marisa to come attack us for attacking the Human Village with Shikieiki and a fairy. Because Aya is totally going to make that sound like an incident somehow. If we can get to the courtroom with the right timing, we'll get to see one of them attacking the local branch of the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Back.
It appears there is a tie between the sleep and the wake options. Next vote breaks the tie.

[x] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.
[x] Tekeli-li! Keep it on for now. It’s useful in a myriad of ways.

Cheers

[X] Just let them sleep for now. Daiyousei probably deserves it. You’re sure you could find something to amuse yourself while you wait. Maybe even explore a bit more of the immediate local area.

[X] Take a form they are comfortable with. The Shintai form might be useful but what do you actually need it for right now? You’re all alone. Nothing’s going to be attacking you and let’s face it; your current shape is not one anyone wants to wake up to.


Really, you should have expected her to react that way. It’s not like people ever responded well to your All-Devouring Depths Shintai from where you came from either.
Well, there was this one girl…All in the past anyway. Damn shame about those fatal acid burns though. She would have been fun to have met more than once.

But her reaction does tell you that people here don’t usually expect formless sludge monsters to accost them regularly. Good to know. You learn something new about Gensokyo all the time.

With those thoughts in mind, your formless hell-monster form dissolves away, leaving you in your regular hell-monster form. Your clothes and immediate possessions reappear on your person at the same moment, returning from Elsewhere. Nice to see that Elsewhere still works even here, though it does raise an immense amount of questions.
Why is Elsewhere overlapping with a world that has no Essence at all?

That isn’t entirely correct though. There is Essence in this world, namely you. This train of thought doesn’t bring you anywhere useful though, spinning around in circles like the Chirmirajen chasing it’s own tail.

Properly adjusting back to your boring binocular vision takes a few moments. You, Daiyousei and Shikieiki are in the middle of a large ten-foot wide and twenty-foot long stretch of bare earth, absolutely everything on it having been dissolved to nothing. Directly surrounding it is a lesser blast zone, from when you had temporarily splattered, sending small amounts of your acid for an outer fifty-foot radius. It is filled with browned flowers, all dead and dying. The very ground here is impregnated with yourself. Barring magical intervention little will grow here again.

Yeah, that could have definitely been messy if you’d landed in a place that was actually important. Imagine if you’d done this in that village! Speaking of which, you hope nobody there got a clear look at any of you. That could be awkward later on.

Now, what are you going to do while you wait for them to wake up? You could just wake them up now but that clearly wouldn’t do. Daiyousei has certainly been through enough. Why not let her sleep for as long as she can?

As for Shikieiki…well, it’s possible that if she wakes up, head clear of both excess emotion and alcohol, she’ll realise that you took advantage of her when she was emotionally vulnerable and tricked her.
Better to postpone that for a bit longer, no?

Maybe you could get more alcohol and make her drink it while she’s asleep. Just keep her constantly boozed up until you’re somewhere else.
…Or you could just start killing her now~

Or your Coadjutor could just shut its ugly demon face. You don’t recall asking for your own particular brand of chrysogonae wisdom or lack thereof.

The Unwoven Coadjutor shuts up, having been reduced to a neurotic barely-sapient wreck years ago by your carefree use of Ebon Dragon social Charms against it. But it speaking up is only a symptom of what is happening, not the cause. Your Urge is acting up in the presence of divinity and trying to make you act to the specific instruction Kimbery implanted in you all those years ago.

++Kimbery Urge: Punish the Celestial Bureaucracy for their betrayal slowly and painfully++

That’s the second time with her.

Maybe you should stop seeing Shikieiki so much if she’s going to keep pinging your Urge like that. It is odd that she still counts as ‘Celestial Bureaucracy’ enough to make it work. Is she even a deity in the first place? Never got a straight answer to that.

++ Willpower: 5/10, Limit: 3/10++

Best not to wake them up anyway.

You walk in a circle around your field of devastation. Maybe you could explore a bit, find a way out of this flower field.

All of these thoughts are cut short when you suddenly hear a rustling noise and a soft thump. Something is walking through the flower field and it is very close by.
No actually. Something just landed in the flower field close by.

“I thought I told you lot to get …out…of…my……..flowers….”

You spin around just in time to see a woman emerge from the field of dead flowers, many of them crumbling and breaking from being touched by her movements. Her red plaid dress clothes in direct clashing contrast with her green hair, she stands out a lot.

Even more so because of her expression. She’s smiling pleasantly but the smile is becoming increasingly fixed in place, now more like a grimace than a smile. Her eyes go from you, to the general area of desolation you’re standing in, to Shikieiki back on the ground, back to one of the dying flowers she just accidentally pushed over by touching it and then back to you.

A loud snap! draws your attention to a form of closed parasol she is holding. Or at least, was holding.
It’s been broken clean down the middle, each half clutched in white-knuckled hands.

Wait, so this is actually somebody’s garden or something? That you just landed in?

Sucks to be them.


[ ] Ask her what’s wrong. Do not apologise. It’s not even your fault.

[ ] She appears upset. Apologise to her while noting the bright side of things, like how at least you didn’t hit her or anything. Just a bunch of flowers, no real harm done etcetera etcetera. Offer to go get her some seeds or something to make up for it.

[ ] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

[ ] Disregard repentance, acquire mind control. She doesn’t just look upset, she looks murderous. Spam full-powered Golden Years Tarnished Black to destroy any happy memory she had of those flowers and flowers in general. Maybe she’ll thank you for destroying them.

[ ] Pretend nothing is wrong. Field was like this when you got here. Lie like crazy, admit nothing.

[ ] “I say, young lady! What are you doing in my flower field?”

[ ] Write-In

[x] Pretend nothing is wrong. Field was like this when you got here. Lie like crazy, admit nothing.

I know the boringest option will win as it always does, but I still try.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie - telling the truth is suboptimal, telling stupid lies is suboptimal, attempting to change memories relating to the core of her nature is uncertain.

On a side-note, never trust the coadjutor (seriously, why would anyone trust something that's famous for giving bad advice?). On a related side-note, that is a seriously open-ended Urge - nothing about killing or maiming at all, only 'punishing'.

[x] Punish Shikieiki by drawing on her face while she's out.

[x] Pretend nothing is wrong. Field was like this when you got here. Lie like crazy, admit nothing.

Suboptimal things can be fun too.

>>152458
Meh, as long as we lie, I'm content.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

Dammit, we really need to start doing some stunting, already.
Also, I like that Urge - we can play it well enough.
(You'd think convincing the Yama to rescind her previous order would count as 'punishing' her, but there's other harmless stuff we can do)

[X] Wince as you see this poor woman who has had her flower field ruined - you're not the Ebon Dragon, despite the Charms you've got of his, so you should offer sympathy.
-[X] "Are you alright?"
-[X] Ask this question politely, because that's better than nothing.
[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”
-[X] Ebon Dragon Excellency + Effortless Ebon Dragon Dominance; we've used it enough the Excellency should be cheap when we lie, lie, lie, lie.
-X] However, we're not the Ebon Dragon - try and slip in if there's anything you can do to help this girl, later, with the flowers (maybe buy flower seeds, or something, for her?)
-[X] You know, looking closer, this girl is really very pretty...

Well, Yuuka is pretty, and our guy seems to be pretty polite to pretty girls thus far, so this seems like it'd make sense.

Also, Yuuka is interesting!
Especially given what was previously said, of her.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

Safety option

[X] You know, looking closer, this girl is really very pretty...
[x] Punish Shikieiki by drawing on her face while she's out.

Hilarity options

Well, we now have a pissed off Yuka.

Jury is still out on her being similar to the Outer God version in Imperfect Metamorphisis though.

I love how our Green Sun Prince managed to bump into 3 greed-haired girls in a roll.
Who's gonna be next? Wriggle? Sanae? Mima? I look forward to the encounter with Mima most, seeing a ghost hovering around in board daylight and casting spells is gonna seriously freak our little Fiend out if he only knows how ghost work in Creation.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”
-[X] Ebon Dragon Excellency + Effortless Ebon Dragon Dominance; we've used it enough the Excellency should be cheap when we lie, lie, lie, lie.
-[X] However, we're not the Ebon Dragon - try and slip in if there's anything you can do to help this girl, later, with the flowers (maybe buy flower seeds, or something, for her?)
-[X] You know, looking closer, this girl is really very pretty... and we are magnetic to girls with green hair...
[x] Punish Shikieiki by drawing on her face while she's out. A derpy tongue-sticking-out face sounds good

>>152468
Dude's in an alternate intersection of the shinma - he should be collected enough to recall that not all the same rules matter. Besides, she claims to be a divine spirit - what's the big deal with a god running around in sunlight and lobbing spells?

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

[x] Doodle on Shikieiki's face

Hopefully she won't be able to just ask the surrounding flowers what happened. If she does, we're kinda screwed, IM Outer God or not.

>>152468

Not entirely accurate. You met another Touhou between meeting Eiki and Yuuka. For certain values of 'met'.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

>>152474
I'm going to go with the 'Yukari did it' guess.

>>152476
Oops, complete misinterpretation on my part, please ignore this since I've lost the password needed to delete the post.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”
-[X] Ebon Dragon Excellency + Effortless Ebon Dragon Dominance; we've used it enough the Excellency should be cheap when we lie, lie, lie, lie.
-[X] However, we're not the Ebon Dragon - try and slip in if there's anything you can do to help this girl, later, with the flowers (maybe buy flower seeds, or something, for her?)
-[X] You know, looking closer, this girl is really very pretty... and we are magnetic to girls with green hair...
[x] If time permits, prepare an "Evils of Overindulgence" lecture to use on Shikieiki when she wakes up. Maybe the coadjutor will catch on to our presence fucking with the Celestial Bureaucracy if we can get her in enough trouble. Especially if she can't blame us for it afterwards.

[ ] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

Congratulations, you've nearly given me a stich from laughing.

[X] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”

[x] If the opportunity arises, punish Shikieiki by drawing on her face while she's out.

We probably also need to start recovering willpower if we're going to keep hanging around Shikieiki.

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”
-[X] Ebon Dragon Excellency + Effortless Ebon Dragon Dominance; we've used it enough the Excellency should be cheap when we lie, lie, lie, lie.
-[X] However, we're not the Ebon Dragon - try and slip in if there's anything you can do to help this girl, later, with the flowers (maybe buy flower seeds, or something, for her?)
-[X] You know, looking closer, this girl is really very pretty... and we are magnetic to girls with green hair...

Also,
[X] We're planning on seducing Shikieki into a degrading sadomasochistic sexual relationship. Isn't that punishment enough, Coadjutator?

[x] “Please help me, miss! My companions and I were just attacked by a giant flying acid monster made of eyeballs! I got away but my friends have been knocked unconscious and burned! We have to get out of here before it comes back!”


Without skipping a beat you immediately gasp in surprise and step back in a good approximation of fright, falling to your knees. You then visibly relax.

“Oh thank the gods! I thought it had come back! Please help me, miss! We were just attacked by a giant flying acid thing! Covered in eyeballs! It’s already burned the other two and I think it’s going to come back! We need to run!”

The fact that you can’t handle people without burning them is actually working in your favour here. Some of those burns, while shallow and light, are quite noticeable. Particularly that one across Shikieiki’s face. She should be able to see them quite easily.

She looks down at you, her smile returning to something much more natural looking. Looking back, you notice that she’s quite pretty. And she’s looking directly at your forehead, where your black caste mark has manifested due to your high Essence use.
And she’s not blinking.

The Caste Mark of an Infernal Fiend is a perfectly blank black disc that is darker than dark, a void that mortals cannot look upon without suffering actual physical pain and in prolonged contact, blindness. Even those who are not mortals find it repulsive to look upon for long.
She’s looking at it pleasantly without any reaction whatsoever, without even blinking.

“And this monster did all of this?”

“Yes! It was made of…acid! I think it might be coming back. Oh gods I don’t want to die!”
You inject your voice with as much pathetic fear as you can muster. You think of using your Excellency to boost the lie but you know that even a single extra mote of Essence use would propel your anima to it’s next highest level, far beyond the muted cloak of colours you currently wear. Which would probably give away that you’re definitely something weird and unknown.

Her face changes slightly, showing a faint hint of contempt.
“And where did this monster go?”

“I don’t know! It just disappeared! It could be anywhere!”

“Hmph. I see. Do you know who I am?”

“…No?”

“My name is Yuuka Kazami, warlock. And I do not appreciate being lied t-”
She stops mid word and looks…confused? She regathers her smiling composure instantly though and continues.
“It would appear that your absurd story is true. The flowers agree with you. And here I was getting all excited for nothing.”

She pulls you to your feet, her broken umbrella knitting together and reforming as she does so.

Standing up, you note again that she’s nearly a head shorter than you are. It’s easy to forget.
“M-Miss, are we going to leave? Where are we going to go? I’m afraid I don’t know the way and it might come back!”

“That’s what I’m counting on. You might not know me but anyone who’s important in Gensokyo does. The idea that something powerful enough to defeat the Yama-”

Oh wait damn she knows Shikieiki?

“defeat the Yama doesn’t know of me to the point of doing all this to my garden …irritates me. What’s the point of a reputation if they just come in and slaughter my children anyway? So no. We are staying here and waiting for it come back.”

She moves the umbrella over her shoulder, reminiscent of how one might balance a favourite weapon.
“And this monster and I are going to have words. Now get back in the middle of the circle and act like bait. Don’t wake the other two.”


[ ] Get back into the middle of the circle and act like bait.

[ ] Decide your persona is more afraid of the monster than it is of Yuuka, demand to go somewhere else.

[ ] Wake the other two.

[ ] “Actually the monster was me. It’s not going to come back, no matter how long we wait.”

[ ] You know for a fact that the monster is never coming back. Don’t humour this…whatever Yuuka is. Find a way to leave and do so.

[ ] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”

[ ] LASER FIGHT

[ ] Write-In

That turned out way shorter than I thought I did.
Probably because writing Yuuka is something I'll need to get used to.

[X] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”

Oh crap, Yuuka knows about Green Sun Prince...

I wonder what's Yuuka in this setting? Some 2nd/3rd Circle soul?

Personally I think she fits to be one of Oramus, afterall, she did live in a mansion in a land of dream and owns a garden.

[x] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”

This can only end in tears, hilarious, hilarious tears.

>>152491
Considering that third-circle souls don't need to reflect their overselves in all matters, she could be the soul of quite a number of things - Hegra, Metagaos, etc. It's certainly possible to justify any of these connections.

[x] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”

If there's any information transfer between Creation and there, a fair number of buildings in Gensokyo could be counts-as-Manses. Not sure how they'd power them specifically, but there's certainly locations with strong elemental power in Gensokyo.

[X] Internally promise yourself, you're going to buy the best goddamn flowers to give to this garden, the first chance you get
-[X] And whatever else flowers need - these flowers totally deserve it!
[X] Shrug, and go along with it - not like there's much else you can do right now.
-[X] While staying around, you might as well enjoy the view of the pretty Miss Yuuka, right?
[X] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”


I figure, this is the first chance in a long while that we've got to just take a breath and slow down, after we met the fairy.
Might as well use it to admire the pretty green view, right?
And by view, I mean Yuuka


Also, we absolutely need to give something to these flowers, as thanks for backing us up.
Like, I don't know, good soil?
That's what plants would like, right?
Or something like that?

[x] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”
[x] Offer her some alcohol to pass the time.
[x] And a back rub too.

[X] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”

Wait a second. Her flowers can tell her that a giant blob-monster wrecked her field, but not that the monster turned into us? I suspect she's setting us up.
Perhaps she's just trying to get us somewhere were she can blast us without hurting her flowers, or perhaps she wants to wait for the Yama to wake up. Either way, we should avoid doing what she says.

[X] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”
[X] Fix the acid burns in the ground later. These flowers deserve our gratitude. (Assuming we get out of this unharmed.)

>>152497
Maybe the flowers aren't, you know, the brightest suns in the field?
They're flowers, after all, so maybe they can't tell her more than "it's true that a giant blob monster killed stuff" because they literally don't have the brains to understand more than that.
Either way, if we get away from this unscathed, we should at least try to repair some of the acid damage, because an infernal exalt owing his life (or at least his good health) to FLOWERS is just too pathetic to even contemplate.

>>152498
You speak as though Yuuka is sure to splat the Fiend when he is both unlikely to fight fairly and even more resistant to death than most Celestial Exalts (multiple perfect defenses plus a Mortality-Entangling Gem).

Besides, shamelessness is a big plus for Exalts, particularly Fiends emulating the Ebon Dragon. Virtues are helpful and all, but they also lead Exalts to doing very, very stupid things.

>>152498
he doesn't owe his life to flowers; he owes his life to the fact that he can lie convincingly.

>>152497
Did you see how pissed Yuuka was when she first saw us?
If she thought it was us who had done this, she wouldn't spend so much time trying to trick us (besides, we're automatically great at finding out if someone is trying to manipulate us by telling lies).

We'd be in a fight, right this instant.

Since we're not, we can safely assume that the pretty Yuuka has bought our story, which is really good for us, since it means we can take a few moments to get our bearings again, enjoy the breather now that we're not under risk of crashing into something (even though I'll be the first to admit that scene was hilarious)

[X] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”
-[X]"And - children?"

>>152498
We're Fiend Caste. If we're not paranoid, we're not doing it right.

[X] “Whatever you say Miss Yuu-Wait, warlock?”


You’re sure as hell not going to admit to being the monster, not after you just had some flowers unexpectedly backing you up. You’re not sure why they did it though and there’s always the possibility that Yuuka is lying, though if she is there’s not much you can do about it except for keeping your eye on her. If she’s doing it, it’s good enough that you can’t pick it up at all, even with your eyes.
Best to just play it straight, keep up the act and do what she says. After a few hours of waiting she’ll-

My name is Yuuka Kazami, warlock.

She called you a warlock. That is a thing she said. While it’s not as bad as if she just went all out and called you an Infernal or a Fiend, using the term ‘Warlock’ is still an awful coincidence.
But how can she know? Have people from Creation stumbled into this world before? What connection does she have to it? You have half a mind to activate Insignificant Embers Intuition once more to get a fix on whether she has Essence or not but refrain. She’d likely notice the green tint to your eyes, not to mention that even using such a cheap Charm at this point would ramp your anima up to it’s ‘can be seen for miles around’ stage, which would probably be bad.

Or maybe you could just ask her.

“Warlock? What do you mean by that, Miss Yuuka?”

She shrugs.
“What did you mean by calling me ‘Yuuka’?”

“Er…that is your name isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

You stand in the middle of the ruined area for a few more minutes without speaking. After an amount of time you figure that it would take for your persona to gather the courage to question her, you do so.
“That didn’t seem to answer my question at all.”

“I think it did. You call me Yuuka while being completely ignorant of my name’s meaning. You only know that I am her.”
Her voice betrays nothing but the slightest hint of contempt. She seems to have bought into your act and as such doesn’t seem to see you as someone worth explaining anything to.
And since acting like you had a backbone would go against character, you just continue your futile hunt for a monster that is actually yourself.

After more than an hour of this, you’re beginning to feel weary. It’s not so much from standing up for so long but that goddamn sun. It feels as every bit oppressive to you as the sun in Creation did, hopefully minus the part of being an Essence-charged mobile warmachine. You’re not sure why you feel this way though. In Creation, the sun was empowered to be the enemy of Creatures of Darkness and with the Ebon Dragon being the Creature of Darkness, you’ve never felt well under it’s direct stare.
But why does the sun here still affect you in the same way? Maybe it doesn’t and all it’s in your head, your mind just following old habits and responses to sunlight.

Regardless of cause, it makes the following hours rather uncomfortable. Shikieiki and Daiyousei remain asleep, which actually makes you a little suspicious. At least one of them should probably be awake right now.

Within the first hour, your anima banner dies down, reduced to nothing more than your Caste Mark, which itself is now flickering and hard to see.
Luckily mote respiration seems to be still working (how?) and the hours of waiting more than fills your Personal Essence store, giving you stealthy use of Essence once again.

Looking at Yuuka out of the corner of your eye, you note that she hasn’t moved at all yet and her eyes have never left you. Around her feet, new yellow flowers are sprouting and rapidly growing.
You activate Insignificant Embers Intuition. Beyond your own, there is still no Essence anywhere, including Yuuka. She appears to be made of the same alien matter that everything else is.
So at least that’s one theory that’s out the window.

A few minutes after this, she speaks the first words to have been spoken in some time.
“Holding back the flowers is getting tiring.”

“Holding them back?”

“I had hoped to leave this area dead for longer, to draw the monster out.”
She tilts her head at the newborn flowers growing around her.
“But even when I try not to, it is my nature.”

“…So you’re a flower spirit of some kind?”

“Every time I talk to you, I am astounded by how useless my reputation has become. Yes, I am a flower youkai, flowers being the one thing that I can exert control over. What, did you just fall into Gensokyo yesterday?”

“I wish. This is still my first day.”

“But your two companions, the Yama and the fairy. They at least said something about not coming into my domain? How dangerous I was?”

“They didn’t say anything at all, actually.”

Yuuka doesn’t say anything but she looks less than pleased by this.
“I try to stay well-known for a reason, as it scares off murderers who would otherwise be ignorant. It would be terrible if the world had forgotten my face.”

You’re not sure where she’s going with this but you decide that Yuuka suddenly deciding to become talkative probably isn’t a bad thing.

“Wait. If flowers are the only thing you can control, how did you fix your parasol?”

She looks confused for a moment, as if honestly unable to comprehend your question.
“This thing? It’s a flower. What else would it be?”

“A parasol?”

Yuuka looks uncertain, her smile wavering. She’s quiet for at least a minute before replying.
“It was a parasol once. A very, very long time ago. I…I had nearly forgotten. But now it is a flower.”

“Why?”

“Because I am Yuuka Kazami, the flower youkai and this umbrella has been with me for a long time. There is nothing in me that is not flowers and so anything that joins with me that is not a flower swiftly becomes one. My umbrella, my mansion, the girl that guards my gate…they might all still look like different things but their…true soul, their metaphysical spirit, are all flowers. This Garden of the Sun is the least of my gardens and it is the only one where my flowers wear their true shape.”

You’re not sure how to reply to that so you don’t. After a short period of silence, she does speak up again.
“It looks your fear of the monster’s return was gravely unfounded. You and the others have failed to draw it out.”

What were the odds of that happening? You were completely surprised by this revelation of course, not something you were expecting at all.
“If it’s failure, then I think I will be leaving now. It’s been nice speaking to you, miss Yuuka.”

You go to gather up your two companions, who have still not woken up. As you get closer, you see why. Tiny flowers have sprouted up around them, filling their air with a thick perfume. They smell like lullabies and darkness.
Just sniffing them nearly causes you to keel over before your own Essence burns out the effect.

“The sun is beginning to set, warlock. The trap has failed but the hunt tomorrow will not. You and your friends can join me in my dream mansion until the sun blooms again tomorrow.”

“I would much prefer it if you would withdraw their sleep and let us all just leave. We’ve failed as bait, so why use us for a hunt?”

Again, Yuuka looks honestly perplexed at your words. It’s as if you’re speaking a foreign language
“Why would I let flowers leave my garden?”

[ ] You had a feeling it was going to get like this. Escape forcibly, possibly by setting the garden on fire.

[ ] Maybe you can convince her to let you all go.

[ ] Convincing is for chumps and people who don’t have mindfuck. Deploy said mindfuck.

[ ] You don’t feel like leaving Metagaos’ freaky little sister around after you escape. She might come after you. Remove her from this world.

[ ] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come off that yet, right?

[ ] Write-In.

Mindfuck, as she's utterly nuts.

[x]mindfuck

yay full mote pool. might as well use it.

[x] Maybe you can convince her to let you all go.

As tempting as the mindfuck solution is, it's not yet time - if we start a fight, we should be prepared to end that fight, utterly and conclusively. Let's give the nice and polite method one last shot - if it fails, then we start with the mindfuck and end it with seeing how much she likes being shunted into the Darkness Outside Existence.

[X]Turn into Yuuka's evil twin and turn her into our bitch. Manipulation of flowers, right?

[X] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come off that yet, right?

Okay, So we have 'mentally insane' Yuuka. Mindfucking may or may not lead to good, Convincing her wont work, And I'm not too sure how we might 'remove her from this world'. Becoming her twin I dont think would work, And leaving in a blaze (literally) would probably only make her madder. I'm completely stumped. [x]Tentacle Raping would work right?

[x] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come off that yet, right?

I wish to be the beautiful flower!

Yuuka is completely sane.

>>152582
Yuuka (along with everything else she comes to Own) is metaphysically a flower. She has the power to manipulate flowers. Ergo, if we become her, she will be vulnerable to her own powers.

>>152585
Yeah, that's the impression I'm getting as well. Mostly sane but inhuman. Like the Primordials, in some ways, though obviously lesser in power and grandeur.

[x] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come off that yet, right?

She...doesn't actually seem all that insane to me. Just inhuman in the way she sees everything. As for my vote, I kinda want to see what happens when our companions wake and find where they are. Also, we're collecting green haired characters (next person we run into is in a shrine on a mountain?)

[x] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come off that yet, right?


Bad ideas ho!

[X] You had a feeling it was going to get like this. Escape forcibly, possibly by setting the garden on fire.

Lets see how well an exalt who is mostly 'acidic ocean' and 'incarnation of backstabbery' does against 'flower'.

[X] You had a feeling it was going to get like this. Escape forcibly, possibly by setting the garden on fire.

[X] You had a feeling it was going to get like this. Escape forcibly, possibly by setting the garden on fire.

You know, given Yuuka is such an old-school Youkai, she'd likely have some concept of the rules of hospitality (The host must be hospitable (food, rest, not injuring or killing) to the guest. The guest must be courteous and respectful to their host. The guest should offer some kind of parting gift or favor). Heck, even the most insane and 'inhuman' Yuuka (IM) followed these rules. If we accepted, she'd be honour-bound NOT to kill us. If we set her garden on fire, she's going to come after us at full power, possibly even pursuing beyond the garden, or come after us afer fixing the garden. Which would all be BAD. Of course, the 'not let flowers leave my garden' thing makes things a bit more tricky, but if we rested we'd be rested and have Shikieiki backing us up if we decided that we had to leave forcibly.

[X] You had a feeling it was going to get like this. Escape forcibly, possibly by setting the garden on fire.

Or rather, escape by any means necessary. Setting the garden on fire is just one of many options. Abandoning some dead weight is another.

"Things around me turn to flowers" and "why should I let flowers leave?".
What she just said is that she, and probably her garden, is pretty much like a Wyld zone. Prolonged exposure turns you into something else, regardless of your opinions on the matter.
This should raise a lot of alarms in his head, all of which would be going "Get. The. Fuck! OUT!"
I imagine his priority list of things that should not die/turn into a flower is something like:
1. Me.
2. Me.
3, 4 & 5. Me.

6. Yama
We were going to find Komachi, after all. And saving the life of a local deity means we could call in some big favors later.

Some other number: Daiyousei.
He has no real reason to save her. If he manages to grab her while leaving, okay.
If she gets left behind.. Well, I'm sure her new life as a flower will be just as important to him as her previous existence as a fairy.

>>152601
Guest rights are common in Europe and its neighbors (I recall at a minimum Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic and Arabic adherence), but I don't recall the same in East Asian cultures. I possess no confidence that Yuuka'd adhere to such traditions.

>>152602
Assuming that the fairy suffers a permanent fate if she's abandoned in Yuuka's garden, I don't think Shikieiki'll be very happy if the protagonist ditches her. She'd be happier than if the protagonist abandoned both of them, but it'd still be a black mark on his record.

>>152601
But even if she follows the rules of hospitality, and is a good host and all that, it doesn't mean much if people turn into flowers by being around her.
I mean, being a flower around a person who is mentally abnormal and who has complete control over flowers doesn't seem like such a great idea. It's better to just run right now and if she decides to follow, at least we won't be fighting her on her own home turf.

>>152605
As long as we're shaped like an Infernal, who cares if our soul is a flower? Hell, we might be better off with a flower-soul, for all we know.

>>152604
"Ditching her" is such a bad way of putting it.
It would be more like "couldn't save her".

No, seriously. I'm not saying "throw Daiyosei to the wolves and run", just that she's the first to go if we have to start making choices.
But if it should turn out in such a way that sacrificing her is the difference between a clean getaway for him and the Yama, and all three of them going flower... Well, I'm just saying that under such circumstances, ditching a fairy is the lesser evil.

>>152606
To reverse your logic: for all we know, having a flower soul means Yuuka could manipulate him at will, and then she finds out what REALLY caused the acid burns in her garden.
And him, being a flower, has nothing to say on the subject (or any other subject, for that matter) anymore because she's the Flower Youkai.

Let's assume that turning into a flower next to someone who can manipulate flowers is at least sub-optimal.

>>152607
No way. The Yama can take care of herself. Daiyousei cannot. We got her into this situation. Abandoning her is definitely the most evil act possible.

>>152608
>sub-optimal
Sticking with Yuuka optimizes the amount of Yuuka in this story. All other options are clearly sub-optimal.

>>152605
Like hell, if the protagonist decides that being turned into a flower is undesirable, then he's not going to be turned into a flower (unless he's one of those idiots who forget to take their shaping defenses).

>>152607
Fair enough, but I think people are seriously underestimating exactly how dangerous Exalts can be.

>>152608
His soul becoming a flower means that he loses the exaltation because exaltations latch onto the human hun and po combination. But that's what shaping defenses are for.

>>152609
The Yama's drunk flying are as much to blame, if not more, as his whim to bring her along.

And I still haven't said that we should definitely abandon her. Just that if we have to abandon SOMEONE, it will be her.
Best case scenario is still everyone gets away, Yuuka goes back to tending her garden and decides to forget all about them, Yama sorts out her issues with Komachi, Nash gets some heavy favors to call in and there's ice cream and lollipops for everybody.
But things won't go that easily so if sacrifices have to be made, we start at the bottom.

>>152612
Alternatively, explain it as a strategic withdraw. Come back later with a cohort of summoned first-circle demons and get Daiyousei out while the demons stall Yuuka.

>>152611
Shaping defenses work against things like Essence attacks and Wyld and others things he's familiar with and that works as they are "supposed to".
A simple charm that was meant to create a hat from a section of tree instead turned the entire tree into black gunk, because he's in a completely different world where the most basic of basics (the very existence of Essence) doesn't work in the same way as it should.
There is no guarantee that shaping defenses will actually block out her flower-ization and I don't think Nash is the kind of person who would jump at the idea of being his own guinea pig for something potentially life- and existence-threatening.


I sorta know which levels of bullshit Exalts can reach when they decide to go all out (read some of the rules, but never really played it), but I'm assuming that if Nash has to choose between ditching a random fairy who he's known for less than a day or burning through a truckload of Essence, possibly leaving himself weakened and he still has no idea what else might be out there.. Then yeah. I don't think he would rate his newfound friendship higher than the potential risks to his well-being.

Even if he was dissatisfied with his old boss(es), he is still an Infernal. They're not exactly known for being the best people to hang out with if you value your life.

>>152613
Or, since almost everybody in Gensokyo thinks of fairies as closer to "pests" rather than "people", it's not actually that big of a deal if she has to do a tragic but heroic sacrifice for the good of the group. She will be missed, mourned, and other m-words, yada yada yada social combat solves everything.

Shikieki is dead drunk and apparently drugged too, so she won't have any first hand experience of this. And her karma reading of Nash, which should be black or white only, turned out green. I don't think she can just magically know what he's done in the same way she can tell about people from Gensokyo. Or at least not with enough certainty to actually confront him about it.

>>152614
The charm reacted pretty much exactly the same as if it had failed - changing locations seems to only have made it harder for him to use the charm and only the first time at that. The rest of his charms seem to work fine.

Besides, perfect defenses are perfect defenses unless the attacks target their weaknesses. Whether the user understands the attack doesn't matter one little bit (unless it's SWLIHN's perfect defense, then it increases in price, but that's besides the point).

>>152615
Probably not, but fighting something like Yuuka is fun and interesting. It'll also help us reduce limit if we play it right.

>>152606
EXALTATIONS (what our power comes from) ONLY BIND TO HUMAN SOULS. NO HUMAN SOUL, NO EXALTATION!

>>152617
Well, an Exalted flower would be kinda cool, though.

>>152617
No more ties to Evil? Sign me the fuck up.

It'd probably derail a Gensokyo invasion plot, too. Unless they've already tracked him here.

>>152619
One - the Green Sun Prince exaltation is not evil; it's weird and transhumanistic, but not evil. Green Sun Princes being evil are the results of those Exalts choosing to be evil.

Two - losing the Exaltation in this case is certain to result in death.

Three - why the hell would the Yozis care about Gensokyo? They're pretty occupied with try to reclaim Creation/thrashing in their prison at the moment.

Fourth - the Yozis are imprisoned in themselves; most interpretations state that their escape is outright impossible - unsurprisingly, they aren't able to send out a lot of assets and those assets are tied up in Creation.

[X] Every humanoid-looking being in the current area? Yeah, you're taking them all with you. Alternate Laws of Reality or their own opinions be damned.

Why not turn Yuka into a Party member? We just need to make sure we don't turn into an Eldritch Acid Slug Monster again.

>We just need to make sure we don't turn into an Eldritch Acid Slug Monster again.

Meh, if we give Yuuka a slightly inaccurate explanation of Black Mirror Shintai, we can pass it off as us using that to copy the acid slug thing after having seen it before.

>>152619
Infernals are not, by necessity, evil, excluding the first half of the book talking about them, which was shit.
They can, in fact, be very decent people with very commendable goals and desires.

>>152614
Shaping defenses would protect his own Essence pattern.
Meaning that he should be able to ignore anyone trying to use Shaping on him, even if they use some kind of non-Essence based bullshit, since the only thing those Charms would care about is keeping his own self the same.


[X] Every humanoid-looking being in the current area? Yeah, you're taking them all with you. Alternate Laws of Reality or their own opinions be damned.

Mostly because I also want Yuuka as our partymember.
I like her.


And, guys, if we seriously need to, we could throw Golden Years Tarnished Black (and upgrades!) and/or Fervor-Driven Antagonism Technique (which would be fun!), possibly together with other such magic if things start looking badly, on the social front.

Actually, I think Fervor-Driven Antagonism Technique could be a good choice to use anyway, since we can give Yuuka an Intimacy towards us, if things look like they're breaking down.

What do you guys think?

>>152627
Go with Fervor-Driven Antagonism - the memory-manipulating charms aren't as straightforward and useful if you want to pick Yuuka up as a party member.

>>152628
Agreed.


Fervor-Driven Antagonism Technique lets us give Yuuka an Intimacy - a feeling towards us - of our choice, which we can use to make her not hate us or get pissed.


I definitely thinks this is something we need to vote for, if we want to get out of here alright.

>>152629
If we do that, I'd suggest Nashar (Sexual Submission), then using GYTB to further enhance the intimacy (and make it so that she is literally incapable of saying "No" to anything we ask her to do).

Well, it only does that if she doesn't already have an Intimacy (either positive or negative) towards us beforehand.

Also, it can be resisted through three Willpower. I think Yuuka of all people has more than three Willpower points.

>>152631
I can already foresee the very old and very tired discussion about NPC willpower expenditure with regards to mental influence, and its effect on game balance.

>>152632
Also, it costs three Willpower for her to resist, so if we use it three times, the fourth will get through automatically, assuming we beat her DV.

>>152633
it costs ten motes. a failure means you can't use it again in the same scene.

>>152636
*checks*

The mote cost shouldn't be an issue; if we stunt it, we'd get 4 motes back. As for it now working for the rest of the scene when someone uses Willpower to resist it, well, we'd obviously want to ablate her Willpower down, then.

>>152637
I would like to point out that as of yet, there has been no stunting whatsoever.

>>152631
She thinks we're unimportant, judging by her treatments of the personality we've taken to using.
That does not, to me, speak of someone who is highly emotionally invested in us, one way or the other, at the moment.

>>152631
True, but she's got those WP needed for the whole day.
There are plenty of other stuff she might need her willpower for.

>>152632
Eh, fair enough, I still think that Yuuka wouldn't be willing to throw up several willpower points against everyone she meets, when she starts to feel something towards them.

>>152630
I don't think we want to jump that quickly forward with putting up an Intimacy, with that connection to us.
Giving her some other, positive, Intimacy, let's us build up from that as well (and, as a meta bonus, gives us more time for regular conversation as well, because Drei has a very interesting Yuuka and I want to talk to her some more, by bringing her along with us)

But yeah, obviously the goal is to give her a Positive Intimacy towards us, here.

Calling vote. I think there's a tie between forcibly leaving the premises and taking Yuuka up on her offer.
Next vote for either wins. Again.

[x] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come off that yet, right?

[x] This gives you multiple chances to discreetly deploy mindfuck before you turn into a goddamn flower. Do so.

Can't we also say there's a law against turning us or our friends into a flower?

>>152644
Yes, Because powerful beings obey the law.

Just to keep the tie going,

[X] You had a feeling it was going to get like this. Escape forcibly, possibly by setting the garden on fire.

>>152651
It was "first one to vote after my post, so this tie can be broken".
That means we're going to stick around.

>>152651
http://wiki.white-wolf.com/exalted/index.php?title=Charms:Counter-Pronouncement_of_Enthymemic_Law

>>152653
It might not function in the planned upon manner - it can't be used against entities possessing essence that's 2 stages higher than ours but the problem is that Yuuka has no essence. I'd rule it as working against Yuuka since she has no essence, but someone else might disagree.

Besides, Fond Remembrance of Adrian is much more entertaining. Someone attempts to change your base state? Negate that and then cut, burn and freeze them for it.

Why are you idiots taking the flower thing so literally.

>>152655
Come from playing Exalted where the old wizened martial arts master can punch you into a duck.

>>152655
>“Because I am Yuuka Kazami, the flower youkai and this umbrella has been with me for a long time. There is nothing in me that is not flowers and so anything that joins with me that is not a flower swiftly becomes one. My umbrella, my mansion, the girl that guards my gate…they might all still look like different things but their…true soul, their metaphysical spirit, are all flowers. This Garden of the Sun is the least of my gardens and it is the only one where my flowers wear their true shape.”

Because there's not really any other way to take it. Yuuka's being about as clear as an insane flower youkai can get.

This has nothing to do with anything, but someday I want to see a Yuuka that's basically a crazy cat lady, except with flowers.

>>152630
That works. It would also be hilarious to watch.

>>152659
Much too blatant and attracts too much attention in my opinion.

>>152660
Well, she might realise something's happened, but unless we go "We've fucked with your memories to make you our submissive sex slave", she'll have no way of knowing that her memories were altered. Similarly, other people will know we've fucked with her mind somehow, but they'll have no way of knowing that we did so by fucking with her memories.

Well, barring running into someone whose powers involve the mind or memories. So unless we run into were-Kiene or something, we'll be fine, I think.

>>152661
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not concerned about Yuuka finding out - I'm concerned about people in Gensokyo being weirded out that one of the big names in what is after all a fairly small pond all of sudden acting completely out of character for a random stranger. It draws attention and pretty much none of it good.

[X] Maybe you should just go with Yuuka. Nothing bad has come of that yet, right?


Thinking about this rationally, Yuuka hasn’t actually done anything to you yet, has she? You’re a little irked about what she’s done to Daiyousei and Shikieiki but she hasn’t actually harmed them yet, right?
And while you’re pretty certain of your capabilities to escape with both companions, doing it now could very well turn the possibility of harm into something that is very real. And since you could theoretically leave at any time, why not stick around a bit longer? If you wait for the other two to wake up it would all much easier to do so if and when Yuuka tries to pull something on you.

Better to just slide with it rather than force a direct confrontation. Besides, you are feeling pretty damn hungry again.

“I’ll have to talk to you about that one later. So what’s this about a hunt?”

“That monster will be destroyed. Nothing gets away with murder in the Garden of the Sun. If it will not come here than I will have to go forth into Gensokyo to seek it out myself. This will also help me reseed my apparently withering reputation.”

She looks back up at the setting sun.
“But not right now. Different flowers bloom in the night. We need to retreat back to Mugenkan. Pick up the other two and bring them with you. Your role as bait is not over.”

This wasn’t an order as much as it was just a statement. As if she just expected you to follow without recourse or objection.
Something buzzes against your mind as one of your Charms activate. A shaping effect!
It smells like

flower fields, sickness, soul, dreams, flowers, darkness, sun, light, Yuuka flowers, children, Yuuka, flowers, yellow, nightmare, green, flowers.


Oh damnit she was being literal.

++ Limit 4/10++

Rather than use as something as obvious as your Counter Pronouncement, you instead draw on Malfeas and spoil your mind to perceive and destroy the Shaping against you secretly.
But either of those only ever work on you. You find yourself slowly turning around to look at Shikieiki and Daiyousei behind you. They look as fine as ever but you can’t expand your own protection to them.

But what are you going to do?
Better to just slide with it rather than force a direct confrontation. Isn’t that what you just said? If what Yuuka said earlier was right, then it might take prolonged exposure to trigger it properly. And it’s probably not permanent anyway.
Probably.

Making a swipe across the air with her umbrella, Yuuka summons a pair of wooden doors into existence.
“We will need to take a shortcut. We have already tarried too long.”

Hrm. What doesn’t she like about the night anyway?

You pick up Daiyousei as Yuuka, to your surprise, picks up Shikieiki. The tiny white sleep flowers have braided themselves into their hair. The flower youkai swings the doors open and you follow her in.

…Into a perfectly ordinary looking parlour room. You almost feel let down. You were expecting something a little more odd. Or at least, more flowery.
The walls are covered with rich red patterns while the room is filled with a single small wooden table surrounded by four padded sofa chairs. It contains absolutely no flowers whatsoever.

Yuuka drops Shikieiki unceremoniously into one of the chairs, the Yama immediately reclining in a relaxed seated position.
“Just sit the fairy down as well. This is my dream mansion, warlock, gardened from a thousand children. Its walls bound the world and scrape the sky. There is no escape~”

As the sun drops below the horizon and night begins proper, the doors to the flower field outside vanish. The flower youkai’s smile doesn’t change.
“Would you like some tea? I think you would.”

Without allowing for a reply, she immediately opens another door out of the wall and leaves.
You sit there for nearly half a minute, counting the seconds under your breath before leaping to your feet and searching the room.

It contains nothing beyond what you’ve already noted however. No windows, no secret doors beyond the one that Yuuka left by. The table and chairs don’t seem to have anything wrong with them beyond being suspiciously comfortable. The entire room would appear perfectly normal if it wasn’t for that queasy feeling in the bottom of your stomach.
It’s not a Charm related feeling or anything like that. It’s just this odd feeling, a rogue idea that the world around you is…off. A niggling little feeling that you are living in a falsehood, a dream of another.

You’ve only ever felt this way in a fairy court.

Maybe if you untwisted the flowers from Shikieiki and Daiyousei, you could get their help…
But first, you open the only door in the room. Opening it just a crack, you look out into an empty hallway, doors stretching out to both directions. Each of the doors have a number and some writing etched in gold but you can’t read them from this angle.

You still can’t see any flowers whatsoever.


[ ] Explore the corridor outside.

[ ] Wake up Daiyousei and Shikieiki first. Get that flowery shit off of them.

[ ] Just go back inside, sit down and wait for your tea like Yuuka told you to.

[ ] FAE TRICKS

[ ] Write In.

[x] Just go back inside, sit down and wait for your tea like Yuuka told you to.
[x] Social combat and mindfuckery over a nice cup of tea. Like a boss.

[x] Just go back inside, sit down and wait for your tea like Yuuka told you to.
[x] Social combat and mindfuckery over a nice cup of tea. Like a boss.

[x] Wake up Daiyousei and Shikieiki first. Get that flowery shit off of them.

They need to be conscious so we can tell them how much shit we landed them in. This'll be funny.

[x] Wake up Daiyousei and Shikieiki first. Get that flowery shit off of them.

after that, we can mindfuck, LIKE A BOSS, and all that, but first we need to make sure they are ready to leg it when necessary.

[X] Attempt to wake Daiyousei and Shikieiki while waiting for tea. Try and remove flower stuff while doing this.
[x] When tea arrives, Social combat (+possible mindfuck) time.

[X] Strip Shikieiki down to her undergarments first.
[x] Wake up Daiyousei and Shikieiki. Get that flowery shit off of them.

This is going to make one hell of a party story.

[X] Attempt to wake Daiyousei and Shikieiki while waiting for tea. Try and remove flower stuff while doing this.
[x] When tea arrives, Social combat (+possible mindfuck) time.

Step 1: Ensure the Celestial Bureaucracy owes us our companions are safe. That they might owe us afterwards is gravy.

Step 2: Avoid FLOWER END.

[X] Attempt to wake Daiyousei and Shikieiki while waiting for tea. Try and remove flower stuff while doing this.
[x] When tea arrives, Social combat time. Reduce Limit by making her your sex-slave and concubine.

[x] Just go back inside, sit down and wait for your tea like Yuuka told you to.
[x] Social combat and mindfuckery over a nice cup of tea. Like a boss.

It's much funnier if we present them with a resolved situation before we wake them up.

[x] Just go back inside, sit down and wait for your tea like Yuuka told you to.
[x] Social combat and mindfuckery over a nice cup of tea. Like a boss.

So, Yuuka can completely control this flower-alteration process, apparently.
That definitely means we can afford to focus on her first, in order to get her to remove any potentially bad things happening to our 2 companions (which would potentially save them, making the Yama owe us even more!)

So, yeah.
Social Combat is a go!

[x] When tea arrives, Social combat (+'possible' mindfuck) time, like a BOSS.
-[X] And by BOSS, we mean Fervor-Driven Antagonism Technique, to give Yuuka an Intimacy towards us that suits us better.

First, we give Yuuka an emotional caring for us - then, we can have fun with some "Golden Years, Tarnished Black" magic to play on said emotional connection.
There is also Nemesis Self Imagined Anew + Soul Crack Exploitation magic, if we get a little desperate and decides to start screwing even more with Intimacies.


Kind of ambivalent towards if we should wake up our companions, or not, so I'm open for it either way.
I'm leaning somewhat towards letting them sleep, though, so they don't get in the way of this social fight we'll be having.

[x] Wake up Daiyousei and Shikieiki first. Get that flowery shit off of them.
-[x] Leave as soon as is feasible.

This is obviously just speculation, but in my opinion, if there were something Yuuka cared for that was not already a flower, she would quickly turn it into one. Thus, giving her an Intimacy towards us might not be the best idea.

I guess it could work if we were careful about what kind we gave her, but I'd really rather just leave. The way out might be closed until dawn, seeing as it disappeared at sunset.

[X] Attempt to wake Daiyousei and Shikieiki while waiting for tea. Try and remove flower stuff while doing this.
[x] When tea arrives, Social combat (+possible mindfuck) time.

I'm not terribly interested in seeing anyone become a flower, even if we can make it a flower that's shaped like Yuuka.

>>152687
Once we GYTB her, she'd be literally incapable of saying "no" to anything we say. We don't want her turning people into flowers? She's not going to be turning people into flowers.

[X] Just go back inside, sit down and wait for your tea like Yuuka told you to.

Well we wasted a perfect opportunity for Danmaku so at least ther will be tea...

>>152695
This. At the very least, any fallout will be amusing to watch.

[X] Attempt to wake Daiyousei and Shikieiki while waiting for tea. Try and remove flower stuff while doing this.
[x] When tea arrives, Social combat (+possible mindfuck) time.

[x] Wake up Daiyousei and Shikieiki first. Get that flowery shit off of them.
[x] When tea arrives, Social combat (+possible mindfuck) time.

New Thread.

>>152733

>>152733
Thread 3.