>>4438144
Only a massive pulse of telekinetic energy that required a third of our entire psi reserves was sufficient to topple the creature to the ground causing a tidal wave of loose dirt to rain across the battlefield. Luckily, this was sufficient for us to get the monster’s full attention. To capitalize on the massive investment, we used the same pulse again while the Monster King was getting up to topple it the other way. The monster retaliated with an unprecedented discharge of its main weapon which knocked us out for a few moments and caused immense internal damage to our body.

Using most of our remaining energy, we chiseled a large boulder into a stake and launched it like a ballistic missile at the monster’s head. The rock pierced all of the flesh layers on its temple, but failed to pierce the bone. This is when we noticed a Holy Nation’s angel waving to us from the ground. It carried a message that the Chorus is on the move to deal with the monster and we only need to hold it off for ten more minutes. Unfortunately, you are almost out of juice and the first wave of Ents is entering the vicinity of fleeing soldiers. You must give it everything you’ve got to save as many lives as you can!

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>>4438145
An idea comes to your mind: you haven’t yet tried using heat and fire to deal with the Monster King and Holy Nation standard issue weapons for angels have some sort of heating apparatus. You call out the angel boy just before he leaves and ask him to lend you a sword. He hesitates for a few moments but then hands it over. You suspect that he called home. “Please be careful not to overload it…” he says before fleeing. So, the sword is in your hand. It is an equivalent of an arming sword but it has a single line of some sort of semi- transparent material in the middle of it. That material doesn’t glow in your hands but you saw it glowing when other angels used it so you suppose that you need to actively pump some power into it. A quick test with only a trickle of power shows a substantial increase of the sword’s temperature thanks to your infrared vision which confirms the theory. You should be able to vary the temperature by changing how much energy you put into it, but you should not push this too far as it might break from being overloaded.

You glance at the Monster King, its giant head still tracking you specifically and an idea creeps into your head. This creature doesn’t seem to be that smart, so you might kill two birds with one stone by causing some monstrous friendly fire. Pun definitely intended. Essentially, you need to draw its fire into one of the larger groups of Ents. This should save you on energy that you’d spend by fighting them directly. However, it is a bit of a gamble and it might be much more complicated than you imagine. Still, it is worth the shot. Digging trenches to slow down the advance of the ents is a plan B and you would be pretty much useless after that.

Thus, you empty the gauntlet into your energy pool to get some extra juice and fly upwards baiting the attack. Simultaneously you’ve detected a large cluster of ents that would enter the battlefield soon. Ents seem to just mindlessly rush towards humans making their formation close to scattered, but since they don’t consciously maintain distance between each other they tend to clump up sometimes and you’re targeting the biggest clump you can.

>>4438149
By weaving above the monster clump, you try to make it look like hitting you would not touch anything else, and as soon as the monster charges up the pulse and is ready to fire you execute a dive causing it to adjust down… straight at its own units. This was super effective! The shockwave for some reason pops the red orbs on the ent “heads” killing them instantly even if it was not powerful enough to ragdoll them. The success would not repeat itself as the Monster King produces a shrieking sound and all clumps disperse and stop forming again. This has some positive effect as it is much easier for humans to deal with single monsters than with clumps, but it is still not nice.

You decide that you can’t do any good with the smaller enemies and you switch your attention to the Big Bad. You fly up to its face while heating up the angel’s sword. The blade starts glowing orange and you decide to keep it at that considering that other angels didn’t heat their weapons further. Once you get to the face tentacles, you head for the base of one of them and hit it with the flaming sword. The blade bounces like last time with your steel greatsword, but the flesh sizzles as if it is being grilled. You place your sword against the rubbery layers of the monster and finally there is a success. Slowly but surely the blade sinks into the material as it burns through it. You have to feed in more and more energy as the process rapidly saps the heat from the weapon, but in just about a minute you manage to cut off the first tentacle.

A spray of neon yellow liquid sprays out of the stump and over the next couple minutes it switches from a fire hydrant to barely a dripple. On another tentacle you decide to cut into its core to let that liquid out first and this proves to be just what you need to speed up the process. The tentacle deprived from that liquid goes limp and rapidly deflates. Success! Actually, significant damage for once! And as you cut off the tentacle the monster seemingly resets the spin up of its main weapon allowing you to essentially “stunlock” it preventing any more shots.

>>4438158
Main weapon is taken down after several excruciatingly long minutes of fighting against the torrent of acidic yellow “blood” and annoying rubbery matter. The King immediately notices that its big gun was disabled and switches its attention away from you and towards the humans once again. You suspect that it wants to kill as many as it can before it is taken down. If the angels are punctual, you have just around two minutes to keep going. You decide to try and pierce its skull as quickly as possible since it is the only hope of stopping it from stomping across the entire battlefield. You can’t save everyone, unfortunately.

You rush for the impact site of the megalith and with a telekinetic push you dislodge the huge rock opening you a path into the interior of the beast. Below you see a yellowish “bone” without a single scratch. You jump into the wound and attempt to pierce it with the flame sword, but you don’t find success. The blade bounces back as if you’re trying to cut thick plate of steel and it doesn’t even dent the material. It also doesn’t dissolve under intense heat preventing you from melting your way in. You don’t really have any other options so you pull out your dwarven artifact blade and start trying to at least chip away a piece of the skull by hitting it at your full strength.

Your strikes are so powerful that you have to keep yourself anchored with telekinesis so that the recoil doesn’t fling you into the air. The wound slowly fills up with acidic liquid but you don’t care continuing to smash into the skull with no avail. You can’t even scratch it. However, you feel that the material has some kind of psi current inside of it. Not an “enchantment” as it is not a circuit, but more like a constant flow. You wonder if it is what protects the material from your onslaught.

>>4438161
>
Then you hear a voice in your head belonging to someone you don’t know. It is a psychic transmission but much more focused at your position, not an attempt to get into your head. Still your mental defenses spring up and after you confirm that it is safe you hear a male voice: “Opening volley in five seconds! Get out of there!”

>Roll 1d20, the cavalry has arrived!

>>4438162
Well, this took way too long. We will be continuing tomorrow as soon as I can manage. Feel free to discuss and roll until then

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>4438162
Welcome back

Rolled 13 (1d20)

>>4438162
Let's bail

Rolled 14 (1d20)

>>4438162

>>4438162
So, how do we counter the skull power flow?

And hopefully after this shitfest the holy fuckers will stop with this stupid war idea

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>4438210

>>4438210
Well, it is a bit too late to try and crack it and I will explain later how it works exactly in character, but it is Ag’s first encounter with something colloquially known among SGs as a "structural integrity field". Essentially it is a psi thing that reinforces affected solid material’s chemical bonds at the cost of constant energy inflow. It is used in SG armors and in large scale constructions such as the Arcology in Elspen and Ag’s upcoming Crystal Spire. It is also one of the few ways giant creatures are not collapsing from exceeding the square cube law.

There are several ways to overcome it depending on the situation. For one, it is an active support system, it works only if there is an inflow of energy. If you cut power input and the reinforced object is not structurally sound then it would collapse entirely. However, objects that are structurally sound without the constant reinforcement would only lose anomalous defensive qualities. Also, most things that can’t survive such blackout usually contain some form of a psi battery meaning that you need to sever the power source and keep the object energy starved for some time which can be anything from seconds to days or weeks, latter mostly common for buildings.

Second method to overcome the integrity field is to exceed refreshment rate. Essentially each chemical bond acts as a “battery” for a small quantity of energy that gets depleted with time or under loads exceeding the bond’s strength. The field projector at set intervals refreshes these reserves. If the impact exceeds the psi energy stored in the bond between refreshes then the bond would break. In other words, you need to use as much energy in as tiny of a spot and as short of a timeframe as you can to pierce through the material. Refresh rates can vary, but on average bigger things have slower refresh rates up to minutes and more important things such as SG artifacts have higher refresh rates up to fractions of a second. Also, a higher refresh rate means higher energy consumption.

>>4438351

Third option is to just overwhelm the projector. If the overall impact exceeds the capacity of a projector then the field would collapse allowing the damage to affect material directly. Each projector has a set upper limit for how much psi energy it can pass through itself and to the bonds. It is difficult and more expensive to build a higher rated projector. Exceeding that opens the material to damage or just fries projector completely. Usually you can count on this only if you are breaking something small or if you have significantly overwhelming firepower that can’t be focused in one spot (e.g. artillery batteries vs giant monsters).

Fourth option is to search for weak spots. The integrity field can affect only rigid materials. It can’t affect liquids, rubbers, jellies, fabrics and so on and so forth meaning that every joint of the reinforced skeleton is still a weak spot. Same applies for carapaces and armor, to move in armor you need joints which forms mandatory weak spots you can’t get rid of.


Regarding the war, it is not really the Chorus that is responsible for it, they have some involvement but it is mostly run entirely by mortals on both sides. Also, it is not stupid in the sociotechnological climate of its time. Both sides are participating in a landgrab with identical intent: to gain land and deny it to their rivals. While we live in Ceno it doesn’t mean that they are the “good guys” or “correct”, there are no right sides in this conflict. Both Ceno and HN are aggressors against each other.

>>4438352
I just think it is very contraproductive of them to be trying to screw us out of sea access, they wish to keep us a neutral buffer state but that would make developing our cities more difficult, and the more they encroach on our territory the more they will push us towards Ceno. But then again, the humans in charge may not have the same plans but our relations certanly suffer for it.

>>4438162
And here come the reinforcements! Five seconds is a bit tight, especially considering the moment you needed to make sure that the message was not dangerous, but you’re glad that somebody showed up. You were pretty close to running out of options as you had no way to breach the skull of the Monster King. Thus, it is time to retreat and let someone else finish the job. You rocket out of the head wound all covered in yellow glowing blood. In the distance coming from the Holy Nation borders you can see two dozen glowing dots high in the sky and closing in fast. You don’t have the time to identify them, but it is quite obvious what they are. Since you didn’t graduate from Prometheus school of running away from things you decide to flee sideways and escape the possible line of fire between the giant monster and the angel forces.

It seems that they fired once you barely got out of range. The Monster King’s body almost entirely disappeared in a flurry of tiny fireballs erupting from its skin. The explosions looked tiny compared to the scale of the monster, but a single one would be more than enough to level a small building. This doesn’t seem to be that effective so you judge that it was mostly needed to draw attention of the monster. Moments after that volley starts a blinding streak of white light fires from the leading dot into the chest of the King. The beam holds on for several seconds and then stops revealing a massive gash in the creature’s upper chest. The sides of the wound are coal black, smoking and leaking blackened tar- like viscous liquid, the massive plate of yellowish bone is visible below.

>>4439752
One dot separates from the others and flies directly at the monster while others scatter around the battlefield focusing on the smaller targets. As the dot grows closer you can finally get some of its features. It is a multi- winged angelic figure significantly bigger than other angels that you’ve encountered, standing at just over four meters tall. It is clad in shining silver armor richly adorned with golden etchings. Two giant golden rings are suspended around him with the third much smaller ring hovering above his helmet like a halo. These rings are adorned with depictions of blue eyes with sapphire gemstones representing the irises. He also holds an absolutely massive sword in the right hand and a kite shield with the “omega cross” on it in the left one.

He gets into position directly in front of the chest and fires off another blinding beam at point blank range directly at the bone plate and keeps it on for almost a minute. At some point he stops and the bone looks actually damaged. It has a circular charcoal black spot where the blunt of the beam was impacting. There the large angel punctures a hole with its sword, pulls it out and puts his palm on top of the resulting hole. Then the hole started glowing white hot signifying that the insides of the beast were rapidly being burned away.

The giant monster twitches violently and its head quickly falls limp. Moments later loud cracking sounds can be heard from its legs as it starts folding in of itself. Looks like square- cube law finally caught up to it. It somehow was reinforcing its own skeleton with psi energies and once that organ was destroyed the bones could no longer support their own mass and shattered. The monster essentially folded on the ground and into a puddle of its flesh, bone shards and blood with its initial shape barely recognizable.

>>4439753
The armored angel turns towards you and approaches the spot where you’ve landed. You didn’t have enough energy supplies to waste it on needlessly hovering after all, this fight took everything from you and you couldn’t even win without help. Looks like taking on other monster kings would have to wait at least until you’re stronger. The angel removes his helmet revealing almost comically small head in comparison to the rest of the armor. It seems that below it the man has a body comparable to a normal human in scale. What he’s wearing is essentially a sort of power armor, or even a miniature mecha, depending on the terminology.

He has long golden blonde hair and a face that producers of your time would give their arm and leg to hire as a supermodel. It is not overly “manly”, he has no beard or a chiseled jawline, he reminds you more of the beauty standards for kpop band members, but he is clearly north European. He has light white skin almost bordering on albino as well as piercing blue eyes. He stops some distance away from you and kneels to get his head closer to your height.

With a kind smile he says: “Looks like we’ve finally met. I’m Arael, one of the two Seraphs currently in the Holy Nation’s Chorus. Thank you for delaying this beast for as long as you did, lady Agatha. Your actions saved many lives on both sides…” which gets interrupted by a voice from behind you: “Oh hey, Ara-Ara!” By the man’s groan you note that it is not a nickname that Arael appreciates. “Hello, Tyr. What, was Nike busy?” You turn around and see another armor-clad body that you recognize. “Oooh, I felt that, but yes, she was preoccupied, and looks like I was just a bit late. Long time no see, by the way.”

“Likewise” replies Ara and the two exchange the handshakes. Amusingly, huge manly hand of Tyrael is almost half the size of Arael’s armored glove. “You’re on surprisingly good terms for being on opposite sides of the war” you note. Tyr laughs and Arael replies “Most quote on quote pantheons are on decent terms with each other, relatively speaking, but yes, Tyr and I know each other pretty well, which is why he’s here.”

>>4439753
“Guilty as charged” Tyr replies with a laugh after which he turns to you. “In all seriousness though, I apologize for not arriving earlier. You had to go through some pretty rough stuff, Agatha. We couldn’t really send any cups since they would at best only tickle that thing. But thanks to your efforts the losses to monsters were limited to… under a thousand… ish? I think that’s the early estimate.” Arael nods and adds: “A bit under a thousand, most due to the smaller fry. Pretty low numbers for such an encounter.”

A small pause ensues after which Arael says “Well… the fight is basically over; my angels and a bunch of Tyr’s guys are mopping up the smaller monsters and I doubt that any of the armies would be in the fighting shape anytime soon… I’m guessing you have a lot of questions and things to discuss. Trust me I wanted to apologize and visit you in person that time and I hope that we can compensate for that today. Timothy said that he had an impression that you didn’t like him all that much.”

>And on that note, we can start the talks with one of the two heads of HN pantheon. As last time, questions would be individually addressed until we run out of them. I am kind of at a loss what you’d want to talk about so it is almost entirely a writein section.

>>4439757
>Since you didn’t graduate from Prometheus school of running away from things you decide to flee sideways and escape the possible line of fire between the giant monster and the angel forces.
lol

I'm at a loss in to what ask him too, but I guess we can try something.

ask both of them how common that bone protection is among those monsters since they seem to have experience dealing with them

see if we can put the hostilities to a halt and let us have our sea access? probably not but it never hurt to try I guess

give him back the sword we took from his angel too before we forget

ask if he knew Espeth from before

it would be rude if we really ask him if he believes what he preaches so we better not, the one good thing all this apocalypse thing did was rid the world of fantasy religions, at least the ones based on the pantheons and syntethic gods are directed at real individuals so let's leave religious talk out of it

>>4439757
How did they meet? Have they hunt down other monsters together?

Is the other SG really his sister or they just thought it would be more convenient

I think just be polite and ask when we can be introduced to the other one too

>>4439757
Ask how long do rhey know each other, and if they are on good terms why don't they work together?

How long are they active? When did they wake up?

See if any of the cups present can help heal the wounded, if not we should use the bracelet to help them.

Ask if theae mosnters appear again like the smaller ones or once dealt with the kings don't return?

>>4439796
And he can ask us questions too if he wants

>>4439757
Hey guys, I was in progress of writing all the replies when I realized that I need to wake up at 6 for a blood test. I will post the replies tomorrow, sorry

>>4439856
No problem, thanks

>>4439778
> how common that bone protection is

“Well, the bone itself is not the thing that prevented you from breaking your way in. The issue was something called a “Structural Integrity Field”. Yeah, I know, but the term was coined by a trekkie from the previous generation of SGs and it stuck. Essentially a psi circuit or a psi organ projects an effect that reinforces the chemical bonds in any solid and sufficiently rigid material. It is one of the few ways to exceed natural limits on material strengths. In monsters it is usually found as skeletons of giant creatures and it is much rarer as armor, although it is more common in deeper Labyrinth. You can also find it in SG created artifacts of both this and previous generation as well as certain structures. In general, this technology is pretty common but most examples are relatively weak. It is also very conspicuous, if you can sense psi currents you can detect one easily by the characteristic pulsing waves that propagate through the material. In fact, my shield here contains such device.”

Arael lets you touch his shield and you notice a similar current that you’ve felt in the bone, but it is pulsing much faster, on the order of hundreds of times per second. Monster King’s skeleton used to pulse about once every half minute. You also touch your gauntlet and feel a much weaker current inside of it as well that beats once every several minutes which is likely why you haven’t discovered it previously.

“If you apply enough direct and sufficiently focused damage you can punch through, just like what I’ve done. Or you could do a strong enough alpha strike to overwhelm the emitter or punch through between field refreshes. Also note that you need “direct” damage, as powerful as your telekinetic push was, it was not damaging the material itself. You need something that can rip crystalline bonds locally such as a high-speed projectile or a lot of heat. Alternatively, if you can pull it off, you can cut the power supply to the emitter but it is most likely protected and if the monster can’t survive without the reinforcement then it is almost guaranteed to carry at least some psi accumulators.”

>>4442498
> hostilities to a halt and let us have our sea access

“Personally, I wouldn’t mind you having the territory if you remain friendly or at least neutral, but from Holy Nation’s point of view we need all the land we can get. We are the smallest country by land area and we’re almost tied with Etheans on lowest population numbers among the four states, not counting micronations with one or no SG presence. This land would offer a significant increase to our territory by over 10%. This is also one of the few directions in which we can expand, growing further would require conquest of already established nations. Also, you are not a goddess of a full-fledged country, not yet at least. You don’t have a standing military that can occupy this territory. Thus, the situation for now is that if we don’t take this land, Cenophila will. I do understand how important sea access is so I could arrange for a tax-free unlimited land and river passage, but unfortunately, I can’t give you the land itself. I hope you can understand my position.”

>give him back the sword we took from his angel too before we forget

“Alright, I will make sure that it gets back to its owner. I hope it served you well”

>ask if he knew Espeth from before

“Every SG both from the previous generation and this one knows of Elspeth. She is the reason for why the synthetic gods even exist. From what I understand she has met every single one of us at least once before putting us on ice. While she didn’t personally find and contact everyone herself, she did hold a veto power over the candidates. In my case I was born in the Bible Belt in United States in a family that moved to US from Norway in the 1990s. Both me and Ariel were chosen specifically because while being religious, we didn’t have any issues with transhumanism, unlike our much more… devout parents. I think Elspeth was mostly interested in psi compatibility since it partially depends on psychological traits… or something. She was very vague about it and it’s not like it matters now.”

>>4439784
>How did they meet? Have they hunt down other monsters together?

“Let’s see… it was a while ago, about 85-86 years?” Tyr makes a “close enough” gesture by tilting his palm from side to side. “Back when we were settling in and cultivating what would later become the Holy Nation. Ceno was already a fledgling empire and it was of a quarter of its current size. It was not a first contact; we knew of Elspeth’s Pantheon just under a year after it officially appeared. Tyrael in particular ran into the first angels we’ve made while he was traveling close to our territory. I think he was looking for other SGs who didn’t show up on Ceno radar yet since Elspeth had this weird idea that everyone new from the pods would happily join up with her gang back then. We didn’t go adventuring together or anything, but we ended up forming a friendship of sorts, as much as our positions allow it. It’s not that uncommon, many SGs have contacts with others like them in other pantheons and few are on true no talking terms.”


>Is the other SG really his sister or they just thought it would be more convenient

“Yes, Ariel is my little sister, she was born three days after me and people say that we look very similar. We are inseparable. In fact, our pods were altered in a way as to be connected and to open up at the same time. From what I’ve heard, this is unique among the SGs as almost everyone else went in alone. I think Elspeth did do something similar with her coworker pods but it failed and she only found some of her team, so I’d say that we were lucky.


>I think just be polite and ask when we can be introduced to the other one too

“It would be nice; Ariel likes meeting new people. Although I’m not sure how to arrange it beyond an invitation. I arrived here mostly because of the scale of the threat; I’m supposed to be heading off for Ethea for some important talks. I’ll see if we’d have any opening to pay you a visit but I don’t expect an opportunity any time soon.”

>>4439796
>Ask how long do they know each other, and if they are on good terms why don't they work together?

“We have a lot of differences, Agatha. We are in different factions that have different views, goals and needs. We don’t agree with Elspeth’s plan, Tyr doesn’t agree with the religious approach we took, we both don’t agree with Valistrat pantheon’s raging imperialism just to name some very general things. Each one of those glosses over huge quantities of complexity. The fact that we can meet up once a month for a poker game doesn’t mean that we are in the same team, you know? It is common to have contacts and relations with other SGs that don’t involve the “politics”, so to say. And we do work together, we have treaties for ensuring safety of our subjects from powerful monsters and while we might have fights, the four nations would come to each other’s defense in case of an external threat if it ever arises.”

>How long are they active? When did they wake up?

“Generally speaking, all pods of this generation opened up within roughly the same decade. We woke up just over a hundred years ago which is slightly on the late side. We didn’t start building Holy Nation until about 94 years ago and it took a while to set up everything. We first tried with original Christian texts but in the end, we had to make a “religious reboot” and add some corrections because it went… very bad. It just didn’t fit the reality people found themselves in. Biggest problems were caused by there being other thinking beings besides humans and we had some nasty human supremacy spikes in the first two decades. Also, the “magic” provided some troubles. There is also the whole “seraphim” thing that is pretty uncomfortable but we had no other sufficient way to provide reasons for following us. I really hope that what we do is okay, we didn’t have divine revelations ordering us to do this and there is a saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

>>4442783
>See if any of the cups present can help heal the wounded, if not we should use the bracelet to help them.

“Your help would be appreciated, but there is no need. I have summoned a significant number of angels with healing abilities. You may help if you feel like you have enough energy to spare, I thought that you were almost running on fumes by the end of the battle.”

>Ask if these monsters appear again like the smaller ones or once dealt with the kings don't return?
“Monster Kings in general coordinate smaller monsters. Without them the monsters that were bound to the King can no longer coordinate between each other and fall into much more primitive patterns of behavior, most common of them is “being territorial and attacking whoever trespasses”. It won’t eliminate monsters from the area, but you will no longer have hordes of those ents participating in raids against your island of civilization. Note that there are monsters that are not bound to a King and behavior of those won’t change. Those are generally much tougher to get rid of completely and they can be found even in “civilized” areas.”

>>4442784

so Ceno and holy will keep on fighting, damn

question to the qm not the angel dude, if we were to build the fort for ceno troops now, could they occupy it with the numbers they got on the battlefield here, it is imperative we secure this land as fast as possible, I would even consider blacking out working on it or maybe amping up our energy regen capabilities to a maximum with our natural regen or just sucking up all the energy from the monster king's corpse and transfering it to us via bracelet.

Tell him that we would appreciate meeting his allies, the etheans, too when it's convenient for them.

comment on the supremacy thing, we were pleasantly surprised that we haven't seen much of that permeating the different races today, differences in culture sure, but not outright hostility just for being different, at least that we've seen, the hatred seems to be more focused towards different countries right now.

>>4442883
>QM question
Both sides are in total disarray so current state of affairs is a temporary truce to collect the lost gear, fallen soldiers and regroup. Neither side is capable of occupying the forts that we’d build and it is likely that both sides would wait for incoming reinforcements which would take from 3 weeks to a month. Also, we would need at least two weeks to get sufficiently refilled with energy to assemble the forts at top speed, trying to use the monster’s corpse as a power source would allow you to start now but you’d need almost twice the time for building that way.

Please note the implication of the fort assembly, you would be clearly displaying that you are not neutral and it would cause HN response. What response is hard to say for now, but there would be something. Keep that in mind.

>Meeting Etheans
Ara is not against it and was planning to tell them about you very soon. He can send the word that you would be interested in meeting Etheans and they’d likely send somebody to visit you if you wish. They’d also likely send someone to you anyway for official diplomatic reasons, but you can specifically mention that you’d like an SG specifically, not a Cup acting as a psi phone line.

OOC note: I should really finish with that pantheon’s notes. I’m sure you’ll love the famous “Clang” among their ranks.

>supremacy thing
Actually, we encountered a lot of “fantasy racism”, you probably just forgot. Haven covers her head with a cape in large Ceno settlements because she dislikes the prejudices that people have about her for being an elf (shopkeepers can, for example, sell stuff to elves at higher prices) and she once mentioned what elves stereotype about humans. When we had a lamia with us, people were scared of her and underground caravan straight up attacked her upon first encounter. As a general rule of thumb, humans treat other sentient creatures based on how human they look. The less human they are, the worse they are treated. There are some exceptions such as “holy races” or how centaurs in Ceno are treated “well” despite being only “half” human, but those are heavily regional views. Also, there is heavy stereotyping on national scale, for example Ceno are self-righteous, bureaucratic and inefficient while hiding their imperialist side, Valistrat are warmongering imperialist slavers, Holies are holier that thou religious fanatics and Etheans are greedy merchants with no honor, you get the idea. Same stuff as people thinking that Russia is being populated with communist bears wearing ushankas. Lack of globalization and internet makes this world a lot more intolerant to what’s considered “alien” and “different” to the locals.

>>4446953
well, our lack of neutrality on his conflict is pretty clear is it not? since Ceno joined this war specifically to deny Holy access to this patch of land on our behalf, they are fighting this war for us so we are obviously not neutral from the start.
we needed them to get a foothold here and build a fort for them to hold it was that not the original plan and that was within the limits of our agreement since this place is very close to our capital.
well, whatever happens, we have to hope we can support Ceno someway to secure this thing for us, be it with forts, local resources our armaments we can come up within these 2 to 3 weeks. if only we could assemble a force to occupy the hill ourselves....could we do it?
>supremacy thing
you're right, I might have forgotten it, or I just brushed past it because it was not outright genocide or something lol

>>4446953
Ask him who was responsible for their tech research

Other than that I think I'm good, we should rush some tech ourselves, things are getting busy.

I have a diplomatic proposal too, with the death of this monster king now there is and open and occupiable area between Holy and Valistrat is it not? I don't know how big the area pf this MK was or if it reached both countries or was just inside our territory....but if the are was between the two countries this is what we can offer:

We waive claims to an area similar to this one on the newly occupied area nad they give us the righta tp these lands, if they have to fight Ceno over here and Valistrat over there is can be tough on the 2 fronts for them. And I bet Farsalos people make way better neighbors than Valistrat, so they can focus there while we occupy here and remain neutral, we can even throw in some indirect support against Valistrat if they need.

And we raise some forts for Ceno as compensation for protecting our interests even of those interests just happened to be the same as theirs

Big diplo right here lol

>>4447056
Hmmm

I don't think the Monster King's territory extends that far but....who knows...maybe...

>>4447033

Well, yes, but it would be pretty passive- aggressive from our side after their assistance and since we didn’t commit to it yet, we are considered “neutral” until we do the fort building. Also, Ceno got into that war not just because of us, but mostly because of that land. They also want it and they’d attempt to capture it even if we weren’t in the equation. To occupy and fortify the hill ourselves we need a military, but I doubt that you’d manage to get enough people when both sides are throwing around low tens of thousands of units. Then again, there is some dark elf heavy infantry, the fortresses provide a lot of force multiplication and Ceno might help us with men, even though it’s not guaranteed. It would be pretty risky, so we’d need to vote on it.

>>4447056

“I thought it was pretty obvious, me and my sister both have the sum knowledge of the human civilization from our augments. The reason for our higher technology is that we focused on the fastest progress we could sustain until the four nations were limited by the treaties. Technological progress is dangerous in this world and that’s not only due to the Ceilings and other tech- seeking monsters. Rapid progress destabilizes the society, it is sometimes called a “revolution” for a very literal reason. Let it run away from your control and you won’t be able to hold it back as you’ve made your expertise obsolete to your people in a couple centuries if not decades. It can also outright collapse the society, which didn’t happen in this region yet but we’ve heard of some examples from the travelling SGs. Squashed by neighbors, monsters or rival SGs, unsustainable practices, just societal instabilities and so on. It is almost like humans were lucky during the first industrial revolutions of our home era, it doesn’t seem to “stick” in modern times. Our high technology is one of the reasons why Holy Nation can hold its own against two vastly bigger empires, but it was a risky play from our side and we didn’t even realize it at the time.”

Regarding the Monster King areas of control, there are multiple monster kings in the wilderness. This particular one held its influence on Holy- Ceno border. The one between Holies and Valistrat is to the north near animal- eared peoples’ settlements. HN is not getting a bigger border with Valistrat until something kills that mountain. What the death of this particular MK offers is the whole forested river bank on the other side from our metallurgic complex and all the way to HN current borders. Of course, Holies want all of it and this hill would allow them to project the influence over whoever settles on the newly monster- free land. If we leave it as is, HN border would run up to the north- western bank of Farsalos river denying us about a fourth of our possible lands and a land access to the sea. We would technically still maintain river access to the sea but that limits boat size significantly.

>>4448057
yeah, we wouldn't want that, we need this hill desperately then, our agreement with Ceno was that if they capture the hill we would build a fort on it for them to occupy and secure the land to the sea for us right? at least that was what I understood when they supported our claim on the land and came to fight for us since it is close to our capital city

>>4448057

>but it would be pretty passive- aggressive from our side after their assistance
wait, what assistance, did I miss something? you mean the monster? that was mostly helping his own people, not us, because aside from that HN has been nothing but a headache and a roadblock for our newly formed nation so I'm sorry if I do not feel a single ounce of gratitude kek

>>4448148
We didn't have the agreement, we had a vague promise from Nike that Ceno might give the area to us once we have the army to occupy it. This might be the "we won't call for reinforcements, but you'd have to kick out the garrisons" situation or it might be just "here, have it, garrisons would recall in a week", we don't know yet. Essentially Ceno would have the land "for now" and we can move our stuff through it freely. Technically, if Holies take the land we can still build up and boot them out with the help of guns and cannons.

>>4448158
Yes, the giant monster. I guess it is a question of perspective, to be fair.

After you run out of questions, Arael asks you a couple of his own. He seems to be interested in understanding you specifically, things that you’ve done after waking up seem less relevant for him. Stuff like who you’ve been before the pod, what were and are your motivations, what do you think of certain realities of this world and so on. He also asks a few things about whom have you met from the SGs and what did you think of them. Your guess for his questions is that he thinks that the first envoy didn’t work as well as he has hoped because he or his minions miscalculated and send a wrong man with a wrong goal for the job. Maybe he also wishes to know how you think without asking you directly. Such as why did you forgo a powerful artifact as a gift. Was it a distrust of the artifact or its creators? A gesture of sorts? A whim? Were you offended somehow and didn’t show it? Maybe an external factor? You were never good at this kind of mind games, but you think that if he’s a good ruler he most likely tries to find out something specific about you with these questions. There is no reason for you to be offended by this, it’s not like you haven’t been doing that since when you woke up in this strange new world, figuring out how everything works and trying to judge the characters of people that you meet.

“Alright then…” says Arael at the end, “I’ll tell the Ethean pantheon that you’d prefer an SG meeting face to face and they’ll send someone… whenever they decide to send someone. Same for Ariel, I’ll send a messenger if she gets the time to meet you. Quick advice though, don’t reference the Mermaid in front of her, that joke went dead, mummified and turned to dust literally over a generation ago and she can get very annoyed. For now, I’ll be rounding up the mortals from my side. Due to the situation a ceasefire was called so people will be collecting casualties and lost gear. Both sides would then retreat behind their respective borders and regroup. I don’t know when the hostilities will resume, but I expect that there would be at least two weeks before any further movements. It’s not really up to us at this point, it’s all up to mortal commanders. So, I expect that you have some time to recuperate. If you want to message me, as per the agreement I placed an angel into that castle that you’ve visited last time. Alternatively, poke any angel above “archangel” rank, you can tell them apart by three pairs of wings, all higher ranks beyond that are signified by other features. They’ll most likely recognize you if not by appearance then by name, your story was quite in the news around the Chorus. Farewell, lady Agatha” The seraph stands up, puts on his helmet and flies off. You know, you can never quite understand why they need the wings if they don’t use them to actually fly and instead, they hover and move without them. Is it just aesthetics?

>>4448267
You walk up to the massive corpse of the slain Monster King while pondering the consequences. These things push against the expansion of the four nations which means you benefit from Kings staying where they are for as long as possible, or at least until you have the manpower to enforce your influence in these territories. If one falls and you don’t have the army to move in, then the neighboring nations would attempt to claim the region. In this case, the death of this giant opened up a huge area viable for human habitation. It would be about the quarter of the lands that you have a claim on so losing it would prove to be a huge blow to your fledgling nation. For Holies it would represent over 10% increase to their territories so they would fight tooth and nail for it. Ceno also want that land, if only to deny it to Holies. However, unlike their heavily religious neighbors, Ceno has a lot of land so proportionally this is a smaller loss for them. They would be much more open to having a buffer state there.

Then again… until you have the power to hold the region this land would be in the hands of either Ceno or Holies. The longer they have it, the harder it would be for either side to give it up. If holies take it, you’d likely need to fight their army to gain control over it, not an impossible task after you introduce the modern horror of “guns that actually shoot straight”, but it would take a lot of effort. You don’t know how Ceno would behave once you request the land back. Would they just move out their forces and let your people simply occupy forts? Or would you need to use some force against them as well? Nike’ said that she would have no issues with you taking it, but what about the mortal leaders?

>>4448270
And what about the villages? The new land means more opportunity. It contains strategic defensible positions, lush forests ripe for logging, hilly fields to the west for grazing and farming as well as a long stretch of beach for fishing and sea trading. Civilians from both nations already maintain villages in the region that regularly switch sides based on who raids whom this year. One side taking over the region means that their villagers would flock in and attempt to settle. The longer the land is theirs, the more villages it would have. From one hand, free pops, hooray! From the other hand, they would want to be a part of their parent state. So, the longer you take with growing your forces, the harder it would be to take over the land no matter who holds it.

Then an idea comes to your mind. You have two- three weeks without interference from either side, if you get enough dark elf heavy infantry and build a good defensible fortress in the region you would give your forces a massive force multiplier. With the help of Ceno army it might be more than enough to beat back Holies advance and to start projecting your influence in the region effectively denying both sides the land, which Ceno should be more okay with. It feels pretty risky though, being outnumbered worse than ten to one if Ceno won’t support you, but it is doable in theory. Is it worth a try?

>Sounds like a plan, we need to go to elves immediately and request their forces. Maybe we could even get some more from the refugee camps close by?
>Let’s check if Ceno would support us in this before we commit, a call to Nike would be a good start
>Considering that you might need to kick out either side from the land you no longer really care which side wins this time. Let’s return to our own projects or just come back in a couple weeks to watch the mayhem
>We need to hold on to the previous plan, wait for Ceno to win, if they do, build forts in the territory they’d grab. If not, we’ll see how it goes
>Attempt to incite Ceno to move out ahead of the reinforcements and build the forts before HN has a chance to wait for the rest of their army. This would require a force of your own, dark elf infantry would work well
>Other plans?

>>4448272
>>Let’s check if Ceno would support us in this before we commit, a call to Nike would be a good start

amd I like this too

>Attempt to incite Ceno to move out ahead of the reinforcements and build the forts before HN has a chance to wait for the rest of their army. This would require a force of your own, dark elf infantry would work well

>>4448272

>We need to hold on to the previous plan, wait for Ceno to win, if they do, build forts in the territory they’d grab. If not, we’ll see how it goes

Focus on doing firearms in these 2 weeks so can send some forces to support.

>>4448319
We can't produce firearms yet, we don't have the industrial capacity for them. We can produce steel gear though

>>4448272

>We need to hold on to the previous plan, wait for Ceno to win, if they do, build forts in the territory they’d grab. If not, we’ll see how it goes

I'm not sure what's happening so just keep our deal with Ceno and help out any way we can.

>>4448329
I support the Steel gear

>>4448332
Like, do you want to send steel gear to Ceno troops or try to get elves and gear them up? Because I am not sure that Ceno troops would accept steel armor, maybe steel weapons

>>4448329
what a shame

could we do one big fuck you cannon tho?

>>4448336
Let's equip our people first, that would get them in contact with our town too, that would be nice.

Giving steel weapons to Ceno would help them out a lot?

>>4448345
Yes and no, it would be relatively simple to replace their pikes with steel options, replacing things like swords or arrows won't have the best effect since they require time to get used to the alterations. Also, Ceno army would refuse steel armor for uniform reasons. In addition, it is not a video game, better material doesn't always cause the weapon to do more damage. The best that we can do is getting elven remnant forces (because else we have no military at all, less than a hundred villagers doesn't count) and gearing them up where steel gear is needed. Their existing stuff might be comparable or even better in some cases, they use special metalloceramic blades after all.

Please note that if we get the elves and persuade Ceno to attack sooner we would not have the time to do the steel gear, while if we stick to the plan we don't actually need the elves.

>>4448272

>Attempt to incite Ceno to move out ahead of the reinforcements and build the forts before HN has a chance to wait for the rest of their army. This would require a force of your own, dark elf infantry would work well

>>4448304
>>4448319
>>4448330
>>4448370
We are actually tied. Need a tie breaker here, if not I'll just roll 1d2 and decide that way.

>Attempt to get Ceno to attack sooner, needs elven army
>Stay with your fortress plan

>>4448388
Got distracted by IRL things, so I'll have to move the next post to tomorrow evening. Sorry guys

>>4448481
see ya

>>4448388

>Stay with your fortress plan

Change to this to tie break

>>4449541
Aright, tie is broken and we're going with the previous plan. Writing

>>4449735
You ponder your options for a minute or so before coming to a conclusion that it is too risky to change the plan now. You would have to recruit the underground elves who have suffered through the worst calamity in their recent history to fight and die on your behalf in order to get these lands under your control just a little bit faster. After all, maybe you’d just need a year or two to get firearms and raise a new army capable of beating whoever takes the region under control. Still, it would be easier if Ceno controls the land since they would be much more willing to give it up later, so you will build some forts for them when they capture some strategically important sites. If Ceno looses then you’re not sure what you can really do, you don’t have the forces to assist them and you can’t fight personally, so maybe you’d just leave the result as is and return to it once you are more prepared.

You sigh while filling up your gauntlet from the Monster King’s rubbery corpse to get some psi energy into your system so you would no longer risk falling out of the sky on the way home. This solution just doesn’t feel… busy enough. You wanted to do this operation and to be done with it to return to other projects, and now you can’t actually help in any way until Ceno army does its thing. This gives you anywhere from two weeks to a month of quote on quote “free time” with first two weeks required to get your energy reserves topped up. You don’t doubt that you’d find something useful to do, it just won’t be that grandiose within these time limits. You take another look at the battlefield and you see that almost all of the “smaller” monsters are wiped out and there are a couple hundred of HN low rank angels and about half that of Ceno Cup Bearers (almost all of which are Asklepians for obvious reasons) healing random wounded soldiers. It doesn’t seem that the sides really care whom they heal, which is nice. Chorus heals fallen Ceno soldiers and Cups heal fallen HN guys as well. You would be really disheartened if it was not that way. You then float up into the air and head towards Farsalos, they can handle the cleanup themselves.

>>4449912
As you arrive you are immediately welcomed by a crowd of villagers cheering you on as well as very anxious Haven and Mina. Apparently, the sounds and signs of combat against the giant monster were very noticeable all the way in Farsalos with loud echoing noises from the shockwaves and the movements of the trees on the other side of the river. Farsalos villagers once again display their uncanny intelligence by wrapping everything up and locking themselves inside the inner defensive perimeter just in case. In comparison, people modern to you would try to get some footage for social media while staying in the open. The villagers consider your return (especially not in a hurried manner) as a sign that the titanic battle was won, which you subsequently confirm. It was not your victory, but you did play your part and this Monster King is now officially the biggest thing you picked a fight with.

Haven was just generally worried for your wellbeing since this is also her first encounter with something so mind- bogglingly huge. She also has a more consistent understanding of what you are and thus she does clearly understand that you can indeed get yourself killed. Mina was also worried about you, especially since Nike’ forbade her from leaving the village through a direct order. For one, she was told that her involvement would not help you due to the scale of the threat, and for two someone would need to keep the village safe just in case the MK’s call attracted some monsters. She also has a message from Nika who apologizes for not having a chance to get involved. Also, apparently Tyrael was forced to haul his ass on his own two legs from the nearest Polis to the battlefield which is why it took so long. There were also cups from several of Ceno gods at the perimeter of the battlefield ready to retrieve you if you were incapacitated but that’s all that they could do to help until the King was killed. You reply that you understand and that you’re fine. Mina nods, focuses to send the message and asks you to not get involved in such risky battles if you can help it. You smile and say that you can’t promise anything which produces a groan from both girls.

>>4449915
When you get your way home, you meet up with Rheia who says that she was scared, but calmed down once the sounds of battle have subsided. She somehow found enough fortitude to continue reading one of the textbooks that you’ve bought for her. Regarding Sigrid, she has left for Mirangi along with the previous traders and said that she would return in a couple of days to a week without specifying what she was planning to do. Well, she is a big girl and she can handle herself, so you shouldn’t need to worry, right?

You check up on your mailbox and you find nothing once again. Has anyone ever used your mailbox? It’s like if people are scared of asking you stuff or just communicating with you. Oh well, maybe they’ll come around once they get used to you, after all you’ve lived in this village for just over a year. It’s not that long, right? You take a stroll to the town hall and check up on the boards. There are some requests from traders now, which is new, a few people looking to rent rooms or move into the village with requests for materials and labor to build new houses, almost no monster exterminations which is nice… and not really anything more that can be considered relevant. You guess that this means that there are no pressing matters to attend to and return to your own devices. After a night of rest, you go to the factories to reforge and replace your gear after which you are finally out of things to do. And that means only one thing! Time to consult the project list…

>Construction: a list of projects that require you to build something. Industries, defenses, outposts, infrastructures, personal facilities, labs/bases and so on. Note that allowed time limits what we can build
>Research: a list of projects related to gaining and using knowledge. Personal weapons and gear, prototypes, psychic techniques, insights into the world and yourself.
>Adventure: a list of projects that require you to go out into the world. Exploring the Labyrinth, nearby wildlands or looking into other countries. Brave new world awaits!
>Social: General interactions with the local inhabitants and important people. They unfortunately don’t have an {!} symbol above their heads when they need some help
>Other? Whatever you feel like. Write-in

>>4449916
According to 4chan, this post was 6666 symbols long. I hope it was hellishly good. In any case, vote and discuss, I will post an update tomorrow.

>>4449916

>Research: a list of projects related to gaining and using knowledge. Personal weapons and gear, prototypes, psychic techniques, insights into the world and yourself.

Can we research those conduits with our current power?

If not we can do


>Social: General interactions with the local inhabitants and important people. They unfortunately don’t have an {!} symbol above their heads when they need some help
While our powers recover.
Spend some time with Haven to calm her down and reasure her we were fine during the event, drink some tea at that high place she enjoys. We could use the time off to check on Rheia's progress too and to see what Sig was up to when she is back.
We could also see why our mail is always empty

>>4449917
Ag confirmed for demon

>>4449916
Ugh, I'm really anxious just imagine if HN gets that land, that will be a nightmare.


>Research: a list of projects related to gaining and using knowledge. Personal weapons and gear, prototypes, psychic techniques, insights into the world and yourself.

Can we research something that would give Ceno troops an edge?

Tell Nika playfully that she will have to make up for us for being a no show, we expect a nice surprise. Some lighthearted fun.

>>4449916

>Construction: a list of projects that require you to build something. Industries, defenses, outposts, infrastructures, personal facilities, labs/bases and so on. Note that allowed time limits what we can build

Explosives and gunpownder manufature.

>>4449927
Support the interactions, get Haven some relaxing time.

>>4449974
+1

>>4449927
The word you are looking for is "Psi Circuit", but yes it is in Research and we can do the initial inquiry into this subject within this timeframe.

>>4449939
There is not really much that we can do in this time interval, IMO we should focus on other things than trying to buff Ceno soldiers. Making them better would require better gear AND training, it won't do to just shower them with gear

>>4449974
Currently we have a lab that can produce chlorine gunpowder, a more powerful but volatile cousin of black gunpowder. Actual black gunpowder would require vast quantities of saltpeter that in current economy is more expensive than chlorine gunpowder's base material: table salt. It is still pricey and using it in firearms and cannons would be more dangerous than black powder. Building a larger plant would be possible if you just want more chlorine gunpowder for explosives and guns, but it is considered to be a "dangerous" factory, which means people can die or get injured at higher rate than usual, especially when they are inexperienced. We can build a gunpowder mill and haul in enough salt to start production in two weeks.

If you want guns and cannons specifically, we can actually shoot with chlorine gunpowder. Guns would need an "armory" building while cannons would need a "casting plant". Depending on required size, it would take from 2 to 6 weeks with armory being "cheaper" regarding the time. To get better propellant and explosives you need a simple chemical plant and then a separate factory to make igniter caps, large quantities of smokeless powder or high explosives. Anything in this chain would take more than a month total, so we can start, but we won't finish before the continuation of the battle.

>>4449974
+2

>>4451197
How about simple pot granades? That could be a huge boost.

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You look through some of the projects that are unlikely to take you over a month to figure out and you’re a bit torn between the options. From one hand, you have an untiled field worth of things to research. On the other hand, you really want to make something that would improve the performance of you and your mortal allies quickly. Your attention falls to gunpowder.

Currently you have a lab that can produce some decent quantity of chlorate gunpowder that you use for large barrel bombs and in warheads for your explosive arrows. Unfortunately, you have to operate your lab yourself, it is specifically outfitted to be used with telekinesis. You could construct a Gunpowder Mill, which would be a larger facility geared for production using human labor. Unfortunately, this would be dangerous. Chlorate gunpowder, even when it is stabilized with wax and mixed with powdered graphite is very easy to set off. This means that the production plant would suffer from much more common accidents that would result in wounds and potentially deaths of workers. It also makes the use of such explosives in the army dangerous for the soldiers. Still, you point the project as very promising.

Then again, to utilize explosives to their full potential, you need to look into more applications. Currently you only have explosive arrows, large barrel bombs and landmines, which you haven’t used since the Mad Goddess. There are still more things that you can do with them, some of which would be more useful for you while others can be theoretically scaled up for the use by Farsalos guards or your future armies. You’re talking, of course, about grenades. Simple grenades created from clay jars and match fuses can sometimes be found in Holy Nation’s military. You, however, have the access to large quantities of cast iron and lathes so you can afford some actual primitive frag grenades. It would take you a couple of days to finish tinkering with the grenade casts and optimal shapes, but you can get personal grenades very easily. Streamlining the process to supply an army through human labor would take some doing, but it is possible within a week or two. You can also tinker with some other ideas such as muskets and cannons, but you can’t guarantee that you can manage to make them shoot with chlorate gunpowder within the timeframe.

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>>4452530
The issue is mainly safety. Chlorate is very touchy with impacts; in fact, its main ingredient is used in its pure form in ignition caps. It is also more powerful which means that you need thicker barrels. This promises to make guns and cannons both heavier and riskier. The grenades would also have a risk of exploding in the face of its user if they are hit hard enough, which is never a good thing with explosives. Access to smokeless gunpowder and high explosives would eliminate the heightened risk factor, but they require a chemical factory that you can’t afford to build within 4 weeks. However, you can replace it all with saltpeter based normal gunpowder. It is more expensive due to the price for saltpeter, but it is MUCH more stable. You don’t want your soldiers wielding a medieval equivalent of Imperial Guard plasma guns, right?

Then there are the research projects. You’ve ditched the ones that you won’t be able to complete before the battle… or recover from the possible side effects in time. You also prioritized things that would be immediately viable for combat.

First of all, there is long awaiting research into psi- circuitry. It is a “gateway technology” for psi enchanted gear and “magitech”, but you do expect that you might have a few prototypes that you might use by the time you’ll need to move out to observe the battle. You give it… two weeks, maybe more if you have issues with conceptualizing it.

Then there are telekinesis optimized weapons. Essentially you would be tinkering with flechettes to throw at your enemies with great speeds or TK triggered fuses for grenades and bombs. This promises to be a relatively quick in comparison to other research projects. Flechettes would come with much bigger ammunition capacity than arrows even if you won’t succeed in making them explosive.

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>>4452533
There’s also super heavy armor, the option that you’ve passed on multiple occasions previously. With access to large quantities of steel you can produce a suit of plate armor that would turn you into a walking tank. It would provide you with some actual protection, unlike your current armor that can block little more than what wouldn’t wound you anyway. It would also give you more mass to resist impacts and telekinetic recoil, but it would somewhat limit your agility.

You collect all of the options in a list and decide to go over them once again to reprioritize. You have between 2 and 4 weeks, so decide what you want to do first and what you want to do if you have the time.

Explosives:
>Chlorate gunpowder mill (2 weeks): dangerous factory operated by mortals designed to supply a decent army with chlorate-based gunpowder. Requires salt import
>Black gunpowder mill (2 weeks): less dangerous factory operated by mortals designed to supply a decent army with black gunpowder. Requires more expensive saltpeter import
>Armory (2 weeks): workshop designed to produce primitive infantry weapons of war in large quantities, such as caplock firearms, grenades and associated gear like field kitchens and gun carriages.
>Cannon casts (1 week): we don’t have time to build a casting plant, but this would be enough to produce cast iron field cannons comparable to their Napoleonic prototypes as well as cast iron cannonballs. Production rate would not be great without our direct involvement

Research Projects:
>Alternative explosives (1/2-1 week): Research into application and mass production of other types of explosives, mostly frag grenades but also a few other ideas you might have like incendiary or chemical grenades or larger barrel bombs that need a carriage for transport. You’re not sure what ideas would work in time. Frag grenades free if you take the armory option, it is counted in the workshop’s cost.
>Superheavy armor (1/2 weeks): A fullplate suit and shield that would make you into a walking tank impervious to anything short of anti- armor weapons at the cost of some agility.
>Telekinesis optimized weapons (1 week): flechettes and TK triggered fuses, useful and probably cheap
>Psi Circuitry theory (2 weeks): general understanding of how to do enchantments as well as a couple prototypes which might help you in battle.

>Other ideas?

>>4452534
________________________________________________
And this is it for previous week. It took me a while to find some spare time, sorry. Feel free to vote and discuss, I’ll start with actual implementation of the choices when we start next time. I hope you’ve enjoyed.

>>4452534
>>Armory (2 weeks): workshop designed to produce primitive infantry weapons of war in large quantities, such as caplock firearms, grenades and associated gear like field kitchens and gun carriages.

and do this interactions >>4449927 during the down time between construction.

>>4452534

>Armory (2 weeks): workshop designed to produce primitive infantry weapons of war in large quantities, such as caplock firearms, grenades and associated gear like field kitchens and gun carriages.

>>4452534
>Armory (2 weeks): workshop designed to produce primitive infantry weapons of war in large quantities, such as caplock firearms, grenades and associated gear like field kitchens and gun carriages.

>>4453430
>>4452837
>>4452582
Why is no one writing the “if you have time” option? There are from 2 to 4 weeks available, the current choices only account for worst case. Also can you guys clarify if you want to use chlorate gunpowder or normal gunpowder? The difference in production is not great, current lab can make black gunpowder as well as chlorate gunpowder.

>>4454604
>>Psi Circuitry theory (2 weeks): general understanding of how to do enchantments as well as a couple prototypes which might help you in battle.

I'll go with this, I just assumed we would not have the time
as for the tipe of gunpownder, go with the safer one for ground troops

>>4452534

>Armory (2 weeks): workshop designed to produce primitive infantry weapons of war in large quantities, such as caplock firearms, grenades and associated gear like field kitchens and gun carriages.


>Cannon casts (1 week): we don’t have time to build a casting plant, but this would be enough to produce cast iron field cannons comparable to their Napoleonic prototypes as well as cast iron cannonballs. Production rate would not be great without our direct involvement
Anti-infantry grape ammunition


>Alternative explosives (1/2-1 week): Research into application and mass production of other types of explosives, mostly frag grenades but also a few other ideas you might have like incendiary or chemical grenades or larger barrel bombs that need a carriage for transport. You’re not sure what ideas would work in time. Frag grenades free if you take the armory option, it is counted in the workshop’s cost.

>>4452534

>Armory (2 weeks): workshop designed to produce primitive infantry weapons of war in large quantities, such as caplock firearms, grenades and associated gear like field kitchens and gun carriages.


>Cannon casts (1 week): we don’t have time to build a casting plant, but this would be enough to produce cast iron field cannons comparable to their Napoleonic prototypes as well as cast iron cannonballs. Production rate would not be great without our direct involvement
Anti-infantry grape ammunition

>Telekinesis optimized weapons (1 week): flechettes and TK triggered fuses, useful and probably cheap

Just to point out we have yet to explore what the spaces we grow during one of ours fights was about.

>>4456551
Do you mean those scales? I removed them from the list because upon failure of that research Ag would suffer a lot of damage which won’t heal before the next battle. We will have an opportunity to get them next time

>>4457082
Oh ok.

>>4456147
>>4455287
>>4454665
>>4453430
>>4452837
>>4452582
I rolled 3 weeks, it is going to be Armory and Cannon Casts. Writing

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>>4457366
After some consideration you decide that it is probably high time to get some guns going as a priority. They are a massive force multiplier that would revolutionize warfare in your favor. Guns are significantly easier to master than bows or any of the medieval melee weapons while also being effective against almost any armor that a man could wear. In addition, bullet wounds tend to be even more lethal in the world without modern hygiene and antibiotics. They would also be great for defending Farsalos and your other future holdings from monsters especially if you produce enough for civilians.

Unfortunately, the main issue for you is that the main component of the “classical” black gunpowder is relatively expensive in Ceno. Saltpeter is produced in a multistep bacterium- facilitated chemical process inside of refuse piles that contain organic refuse from the nearby settlement (rotting plant and animal matter as well as human excrement, animal excrements produce less saltpeter), ash and lime usually in the form of construction waste and debris with production cycle requiring around two years. However, not all saltpeter is viable for being used in gunpowder, you need the one with least limestone and the most ash. Lime rich saltpeter is rich with calcium which makes it hygroscopic (aka it sucks in water vapors) causing gunpowder to go wet. In addition, the process goes worse in colder climates and can stop completely if temperatures fall below zero. Saltpeter is also a well-known and trusted fertilizer which makes it almost constantly in demand, but the specifics of its creation are a mystery to the people and “recipe” depends mostly on local population and availability of materials.

Historically, cannons and guns were used sporadically until population growth and discovery of saltpeter in a mineral form in Americas skyrocketed the supply allowing for a more common application of firearms. You attempted to circumvent it with introduction of chlorate gunpowder, but you judged it excessively dangerous for humans. It is too powerful to be used as a firearm propellant and too unstable which would mean regular losses from accidents among anyone who is forced to work with the substance. While you can survive a grenade or a gun blowing up into your face a couple times, you doubt that any of your soldiers could walk away from that. Plus, the gun barrels capable of surviving increased load would be potentially too heavy for a human to carry. This means that you are forced to specifically search for ash rich saltpeter and buy it. By studying the maps, you managed to narrow down the search by avoiding areas with easy access to limestone and focusing on places near forests that burn large quantities of wood for one reason or another. There are not many places like that, but it barely takes you a couple of days to fly to over a dozen villages and several towns to accumulate just under a ton of the stuff. This should last you for some time.

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>>4457865
Then you can deal with the production of firearms themselves, for which you will construct a large building that you’ve dubbed “the Armory” … or “the Arsenal” … it is essentially a tiny factory made of several smaller workshops under the same roof that builds weapons and gear on mass scale. By necessity you are forced to build it on the bank of the Farsalos river as it would rely heavily on lathes and you can’t power them without dipping into the steam power or something similar, which you can’t do just yet.

The Armory would contain a watermill powered arrangement of grinders that would pulverize components of the gunpowder which would then be mixed and pelleted by the workers. It would also have a small chemical plant that would produce small quantities of potassium chlorate for the use in production of caps. Nearby to it would be a workshop for mass production of percussion caps where a sheet of copper is stamped into the shape by a hand press and filled with a precise quantity of pressed potassium chlorate powder resulting in an ignition mechanism that can work in any weather, unlike its predecessor flintlock. This is the most dangerous part of the whole factory and you’ll make sure to use every safety approach that you can remember and implement.

The other part of the factory would contain a workshop that would produce the locks themselves. They include the hammer, the spring and the rest of the trigger mechanism pieces individually plus the pieces of the grenade fuses. To speed up the process, each worker would only produce a single piece on their own workstation with materials delivered to them and subproducts recovered from them. Another two workshops would produce the three types barrels for pistols, blunderbusses and rifled muskets from steel cylinders that are cast in the metallurgic plant. Rifling was a problematic thing to achieve for a long time, but you have lots of knowledge and inhuman precision allowing you to delegate the process to a separate powered machine with a hard steel drill bit that has water coolant pumped through it and out of its tip’s sides. Another workshop separated into its own room would be responsible for producing handles and stocks. In the end, all of the parts would arrive to the final assembly where they would be checked for defects and several workers would meticulously craft the firearms themselves. As a final touch, you’ve added the book and gear from your flag to be burned into the wood of the stock via a hot branding iron.

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>>4457867
The grenades would need to be assembled separately due to the risks involved. The cast grenade casing would be integrated with the fuse assembly that contains a spring-loaded hammer pointing at the cap, which in turn would ignite a 5-second fuse. In the end, the grenade is filled with gunpowder, sealed, capped to prevent accidental loss of the ring and packed. Fuse is a bit too simple to have an additional safety feature of a lever, those would need to wait for more sophisticated production. This in turn allowed you to go for an old and tested design known as “stick grenades”. They would be worse as they don’t use a high explosive, but they will rupture and throw around a cloud of fragments.

Regarding the most important part of all of this, ammunition would require only a single workshop as it is almost entirely consisting of packing. Primitive gunpowder weapons have propellant and the bullet stored separately; the gunpowder needs its own flask which can be made of anything but ferrous metals since they spark. Bullets themselves are cast from lead entirely in the metallurgic plant and only require their own pouches. Interesting note, the bullets themselves are not all simple balls, some were historically shaped very similarly to modern bullets, which is how you approach it as well.

In the end, you also throw in belts, bags, pouches, backpacks and so on short of actual uniforms in yet another workshop and specific separate workshop designated for production of uniforms themselves such as rugged boots, greatcoats, etc. You have an option to make uniforms with your heraldry colors and symbols, but you feel like in this case it might be a little too much before you get an actual army. Workers would make whatever colors guards want for now, most likely navy blue that Ceno military so favors.

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>>4457869
Before you start construction, you post a notice on the Farsalos literal “message board” wanting to hire laborers, both men and women for multiple different tasks. In addition, you’ve created examples for each one of the weapons among with some individual workstations to get your earlier employees accustomed to them. When you were in Elspen, you’ve hired a group of plucky young engineers who have been helping with maintaining the metallurgic plants. They are instantly interested in the workings of everything that you show them, they have heard of HN and dwarven examples of firearms but they didn’t know the actual mechanisms behind them. Engineer tasks are to learn the workings and operations of the workplaces to then participate as teachers to the workers. Just in case, you also asked Claudina to keep an eye on them if someone gets hurt. You also summoned the managers since there is a new job for them of hiring the villagers and potentially some workers from Mirangi. For now, the products of the Armory would be yours and you will be paying from your own pocket which you can afford for now, but you will be losing more money than you get currently from selling processed metals mostly due to the low merchant traffic. Metallurgic plant is outproducing the ability of merchants to buy the materials and goods.

Overall construction and purchase of raw materials for the Armory takes you almost exactly two weeks, but you do take your time with it. You are not in a great rush to get it done and you can spend the off time with your friends. Rheia is a resilient little girl and the event didn’t shake her at all, she spends the weeks diligently preparing for her entrance exams in mid- September and she is learning freakishly fast. You envy her concentration, like all kids of your time,you were pretty scatterbrained, an artifact of the internet age, the so- called “clip thinking”.

Haven eventually relaxes once you explain that you weren’t in an actual danger during the fight, the biggest threat was to the mortal soldiers and you doubt that the monster could even hurt you, despite its massive size. You spend a few evenings drinking fungal tea and chatting about things on the roof of your home, and she eventually spills out that she is a bit worried about what’s going on in her family. Nothing specific, but she says that she has felt tension when she spoke with her parents and older siblings, but they didn’t tell her what’s the matter. She feels like they are hiding something from her and that worries her. You tell her that if she wants you could accompany her and try to figure something out. She thinks for a bit and says that she gives your plan a solid “maybe”, but she warns you that if she does accept, she asks you to hide your divinity. She only told her family that you are her smart and adventurous employer. You laugh and ask if those are your only standout traits, to which she blushes slightly and laughs as well.

>>4457871
Sigrid doesn’t return after a week so you and Haven make a trip to Mirangi to look for her. You find her in one of the taverns in the state of “very thoroughly drunk”, with a few hematomas and barely any money left. Luckily, all of her gear was safely stored in the inn’s storage. You’ve heard a lot of fascinating things from drunk Sig, such as her going to the town specifically to do this so that “mommy Ag” won’t interfere which makes you chuckle. From some incoherent ramblings you figure out that she has done it from the mixture of self- loathing based on her performance as a huntress as well as the recent passing of her grandfather that she recently became aware of. She wanted to keep it very private, including from you and Haven, but intoxication loosened her tongue a lot. Also, apparently using the “healing” option on your gauntlet has an unintended consequence of instantly making people sober, good to know. As a result, you get a very alert and beetroot red Sigrid who clearly remembers what the hell has happened while she was incoherently drunk. You offer that you could accompany her to that funeral, but she replies that she can’t return, she promised that she would not come home until she accomplishes something truly great as a huntress, and she wants to do it herself.

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>>4457872
Once the Armory is completed, you switch your attention to cannons. To produce lots of cannons you’ll need a casting plant, a separate facility designed for large scale casting of metals and alloys. However, you also very much want cannons as quickly as possible. Thus, you decide to create cannon and cannonball casts that can be used in current metallurgic plants. You will go for mortars and 12-pounder field guns of the same caliber. They would fire 4,1 kg cast iron cannonballs the size of a grapefruit, but the field guns would also have an option of firing grapeshot if enemy infantry is too close. But what to make the cannons out of? First mass produced cannons were made of bronze, which was very expensive and cannon manufacturers in Europe held a monopoly on the method of their creation. Not willing to pay the monopoly premiums, first blast furnaces capable of completely melting iron on large scale were developed in Great Britain allowing for a production of 3 cast iron cannons at the price of 1 bronze cannon. And that is exactly why Britannia ruled the waves, they literally could afford thrice the cannons per ship in comparison to other European powers. This settles your choice on cast iron as well, and once the casts are made you add yet another workshop to the Armory designed to produce cannon carriages as well as carts to carry supplies and mobile field kitchens which are essentially an iron cooker on top of a cart.

By the end of the three weeks the Armory is finally working and you examine the first rifled musket produced by one of the workers, a former smith who lost his shop in one of the larger towns and was stopping at Mirangi in search for a new place to call home. After the rigorous testing you are left very impressed, everything is going according to the plan. Production rate is currently too low, but once all worker spots are filled and people get some skills you expect the Armory to produce 12 of these rifles each week at peak load. This might not sound much, but it is unprecedented for firearms in the current age. You’ll wait a bit for the stores to fill up and then you’ll start teaching the guards on how to use the new weapons. Cannon production would lag behind massively resulting in a field gun every two weeks or a mortar every week if you’re not involved. And just as you were finishing reading the managers’ report, Mina approached you with the message: Ceno forces are moving. Well, shit, here we go again...
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And on this note we are done for today; we will be continuing tomorrow. Feel free to discuss or ask questions in the meantime.

>>4457874
Thanks for running, this is fascinating. I meant to ask you before but we only know about all that stuff because we chose the mind augmentation right? Not all SGs are capable of that right?

Can't wait to visit Haven's home and sort that out. And maybe we could offer Sig some psy enhanced equipment when we figure out those circuits so she can try her claim to glory, I want her to be the best she can.

>>4457874
She can only call us mama Ag if we give her a good spanking.

How the granades went? Do we have some to give the troops?

>>4458044
That is exactly right, Agatha can build all of those things mostly thanks to the mind augment and its synergy with spacetime aug. She has the total sum of mostly publicly accessible human knowledge from 2040s (with questionable things like manufacturing of explosives but without what is considered a governmental secret). Unfortunately, lack of experience with this ability and some certain in- built safeties prevent her from accessing all of it at once. She can access things that she knows of existing, kind of like searching in a better version of Wikipedia inside of your brain. She also sometimes remembers facts about relevant subjects that can be both useful or not. From OOC point of view it is a crutch to account for me not being omniscient and to allow you guys to propose stuff or correct me, which almost no one does for some reason.

If an SG only has a mind augment, they would have issues with things like precision or workforce while SGs without the mind aug could remember things from modern times but how many of you remember exactly how a steam engine works? Not in general, but how the device that puts water into the pressurized boiler works or what a centrifugal governor is? Machines even in early industrial revolution were calculated to the bolt so unless you were an engineer, this immediately goes into something that you can’t do without a help from someone who has this knowledge. Same applies to gunpowder, how many of you remember the optimal proportions? Or the fact that saltpeter can be rich in calcium making gunpowder go wet quickly? And what about skills? Yes, SGs learn exceedingly quickly, but few people in 2040s know how to work a lathe. In short, SG without the mind augment would have a lot more problems with trying to advance technology.

A quick note: second wave of SGs had a more distributed augments while third wave (where Ag is) have packaged augments. It means that SGs would on average not have a combination of all of the Mind Aug features. They might have the library without faster thinking or without skills or only one of those things. Just so you know…

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>>4457874
You thank Mina for the update, but you decided to wait for about half a day for most of the mess to be over. You’ve honestly had enough thrills from the first battle and you don’t really like seeing people die. From one hand, wars in the current social and technological environment are not as deadly as wars fought with more advanced weapons, but it was still not that comfortable to hear the screams of pain and observe dead and wounded lying in the dirt. You did feel some disconnect from the soldiers, most likely from the distance and some hidden features of your augments that prevent you from freaking out in some cases, but the discomfort is still there. You wonder if all SGs have something similar. Might explain the reason behind some atrocities…

In any case, you ask Mina to poke you if one of the sides somehow wins early and you start wrapping up with the bucket list for today. With Amythos (the head of the guard), Haven, Sigrid, some bloke who is the head of the recently arrived Ceno military garrison and a bunch of interested onlookers you’ve performed the tests of the new weapons, more to gain interest than anything else. The grenades worked as planned, but its chain of production is short on manpower so you frontloaded a dozen or so grenades on your own for the purposes of demonstration. You ended up lobbing them at a bunch of hastily constructed wooden mannequins clad in helmets and chest pieces of various types up to steel “fullplate”, after which you’ve allowed Haven and the military guys to try.

Haven was surprisingly adept at throwing the grenade precisely and at judging the timing. You were, of course, maintaining the safety, ready to fling a dropped grenade away in case of an accident. In just two tries she managed to time the fuse in such a way for the grenade to detonate the moment it touched the helmet of one of the targets essentially causing an improvised airburst and showering the wide area with shrapnel. The Ceno garrison officer was familiar with throwing weapons and ended up performing not that badly, although not as precisely as your elven friend. Amythos unfortunately threw it very badly and you had to fling it away with telekinesis so that it wouldn’t hit anyone, but he got better on the follow-up attempts. Investigating the results showed that grenades had lower effective range than ones modern to your time, furthest fragments found inside of the mannequins were only 8,5 meters away with moderate damage in about 5 meters around the explosion. Also, steel full plate armor proved to be resistant to the shrapnel unless the detonation happened within less than two meters away from the metal, with lighter armors having progressively worse performance. Still, a very respectable display from a kitbashed low tech design, you must say.

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>>4459285
Then you’ve done some shooting of the firearms and of the cannon, and the cannon was surprisingly dangerous. The cannonball managed to hit and tear through a wooden target layered with steel from one and a half kilometers even as the ball ricocheted from the ground several times as it was flying. Wow, it’s not surprising that limbs were reportedly torn off by such weapons. Rifled musket also performed great piercing all armor at decent range and Haven managed to hit a human sized target 500 meters away, but at that distance the steel armor managed to resist the bullet. The effective range of the musket itself ended up around 250-300 meters where it reliably pierced all of the armors that you had available. It is a significant improvement, considering that a longbow has an effective range of between 150 and 230…ish meters.

While the people were impressed, the cost of such weapon had the Ceno military guys iffy, it looks like you won’t be selling these things in large quantities to them, at least from the get go. Still, you are very happy that this project has finally been dealt with, now you don’t feel as weak as you used to. You think that for now the cannons would be mostly used in the upgrades to the Farsalos inner wall while guns would be accumulated and distributed to the Farsalos militia, then you’ll be collecting more guns for your future army. You’ve also given a couple pistols to Haven along with a specially made wild ox powder horn with her noble house emblem engraved on it. You suggested to get her a rifle, but she felt that it is a bit too loud in comparison to her artifact crossbow so she would like to wait with the upgrade. Sig was not that interested in the ranged weapon and the militia leader got the first rifle and pistol produced by the factory to train and get used to.

That was half a day gone and you ended up feeling a bit anxious on the situation with the battle, so you geared up, grabbed a bunch of tools for fort construction, notified Mina of your intentions and took to the skies. Large scale construction did harm your energy regeneration, but you still managed to completely recover in time so it is no longer an issue and your gear has all been replaced. You anxiously think of what you’ll see once you arrive, your brain painting an image of a massacre. You hope that Ceno wins, it would be very bad if they don’t.

>>4459288
Once you arrived, you are greeted with a large mess. Ceno has brought 5 times the numbers of their previous army and HN boosted their numbers four times with disproportionally more knights on horses. The battle has been drawn out and it has been going back and forth several times while you were missing. It seems that by this point it is a matter of endurance and the generals have depleted their resources and plans. Ceno has much more forces and they have been rotating out too damaged or exhausted elements of their army while Holies didn’t have the same luxury. Still, it would be a Pyrrhic victory, HN technological advantage and heavy cavalry has decimated multiple of Ceno formations and even if they could absorb the blow that is a lot of casualties. You sigh and sit on a non- existent “chair” in the middle of the sky as you continue watching the mess growing bigger.

Long hours later once the sun started to set, the completely exhausted HN army started a fighting retreat under cover of their cavalry. Ceno were smart about it and didn’t break formation, but it is not like they had the strength to pursue the Holies. Ceno paid for this victory in blood. Out of their 100 000, which is 40% of Roman Empire army at its height mind you, they have lost a third, while Holies went off with 14% casualties. It is not all the dead, most are wounded, but still, that must sting. You wish you could do something, but you doubt that Holies would just leave it be. You expect a counterattack once their forces have a chance to rest and regroup, so you have at most a couple days to build as many fortifications as you can. The question is, should you? Even if you are in the right and protecting your interests, you expect that Holies would return the favor once they find out about your involvement. Still, if you don’t do anything there is a good chance that weakened Ceno force would be pushed off the hills. Choices, choices, choices…

>Commit and start construction of the forts
>Abandon the plan

>>4459290
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And that’s it for this week of SGQ. I hope that soon I’ll manage to fix my schedule in a way that would allow us to get more stuff done on Saturday. As always, feel free to discuss, ask questions and make suggestions, I reply to them during the week as long as the thread survives. I hope you’ve enjoyed and I’ll see you next Saturday.

>>4459290
>>Commit and start construction of the forts

>>4459290

>Commit and start construction of the forts

Even if by some reason Ceno backstabs us and decides to keep the land I think we have a better chance of negotiating with them and if all else fails I think their military would be easier to deal with if we have to take the land by force.
We could add some secret section to the forts if we ever need to invade it too.

And if we build the forts HN will probably realize that the cost to capture them will be pretty high and decide to back off, saving some soldiers lives too.

>>4459290

>>Commit and start construction of the forts

>>4459290

>>Commit and start construction of the forts

New thread is live: >>4468679

>>4468706
Thread archived