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Author Topic: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-36 Decisions, Decisions  (Read 683997 times)

joemoben

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2055 on: May 11, 2015, 04:45:52 pm »

Just a thought, but seeing as it is a necromantic construct that was created by a necromancer, and we ourselves are necromancers, we should be able to recreate the rope that it used to steal souls. "Should be" is of course the operative phrase, but I don't particularly know why we wouldn't be capable of doing it. We saw the rope steal a soul, so it's reasonable that we could recreate it, as long as we remember the shape that it's necromantic energies took and whatnot. Therefore I believe that we should attempt to recreate the soul stealing rope to take Omo's soul from the construct and place it back into Omo.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2015, 07:09:02 pm by joemoben »
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RAM

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2056 on: May 11, 2015, 08:37:44 pm »

We have no way of knowing if steal vitality converts vitality into a necromantically useful form, it is entirely too brutal to risk anything derived from that and untested on Omo's soul unless we are desperate, we are not that desperate yet. Perhaps it would be best to recreate the soul tether that the golem made and perhaps have eko try to use order magic to restore the body to its proper state. An untethered soul combined with an unsouled living body should be more orderly in a tethered form than anything else.
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Angle

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2057 on: May 11, 2015, 08:47:08 pm »

Yeah, I don't think we have significant enough understanding of souls and their workings to cast Steal Soul. Our best bet would be to control the construct and make it return Omo's soul. Especially considering there are multiple souls inside the thing, and we have no idea of knowing which one's Omo's or of picking it out from the rest.
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Parisbre56

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2058 on: May 11, 2015, 10:32:04 pm »

Where does it say that there are multiple souls? I only see one.

And necromantic energy and vitality are two different things.  Necromantic energy is the thing that manipulates vitality. That causes it to move and behave in  unnatural ways. It is what keeps vitality inside dead things. It is what we manipulate when we cast alter golem. And it's what the bottle holding Omo's soul is made of. We, as a necromancer, are capable of directly manipulating  necromantic energy in order to manipulate vitality. So moving and manipulating the  necromantic energy of the bottle directly should be the easiest and quickest thing we can do.

Using the rope would be like trying to use a a lasso to perform a heart transplant. Sure, you could do it, if you're skilled enough and have mana to waste creating the rope, but is there any reason to do it when we can simply pick up the heart and put it in the body with our hands, with direct  manipulation of  necromantic energy?

Angle

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2059 on: May 11, 2015, 10:36:35 pm »

One knot - but this thing might have the kids souls, too. And I'm not confident we can pick it up, either - I think we should aim to make the construct reverse the process it just did. In order to do that, though, we need to control it, and in order to be capable of that we should ask eko about conflict's of will between casters, or between casters and spells.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2015, 10:38:55 pm by Angle »
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Parisbre56

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2060 on: May 11, 2015, 11:00:06 pm »

Not really. If it had them, then we could see them. Souls are complicated. They stand out. Yet there was no mention of other souls. Unless you are suggesting that the construct mashed them together into one for some reason, in which case Omo's soul would be hard or impossible to retrieve. Not to mention that there seems to be little reason to try to capture a soul intact only to destroy it later.
Quote
The new bundle of Vitality in its heart though... now that's intricate, incredibly so. The Vitality there is a rather small fraction of the rest of the creature's, and seems largely segregated from it too. However, the bundle of Necromantic energy holding everything in place is much more convoluted than anything else in the creature, or any Necromantic creation you've seen before. In fact, the only thing it compares to is the ball of Vitality within the skull of Ado Drunkenstumbles.
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Looking at them side by side, that mass of vitality bears more than a passing resemblance to what you can see in the heart of the construct. They are both immensely convoluted, seeming to turn in on themselves in odd bends and swirls yet almost with a suggestion of underlying order, like an unbelievably intricate knot. Though it does not exactly replicate what you can see in Eko, it is close enough for you to think they must be of a kind.

However, there are two important differences between what you can see in Eko and what you can see in the construct. The first is that while Eko's ball of vitality is an intrinsic piece of his overall vitality network, the ball in the construct is almost a separate entity; it does not send pulses of vitality to the rest of the construct, nor does vitality flow back into it. The second is that Eko's vitality ball seems... unconstrained. It is a natural pattern within his vitality. The vitality within the construct, however, is bound completely by the same sort of Necromantic energy that gives shape to the vitality in the rest of the construct. While you don't know what gives Eko's vitality its shape, you are confident you could impair the Necromantic energy in the heart of the construct and the vitality within would flow away, losing cohesion and form. You doubt it would maintain its pattern the way Eko's seems to. If the construct's ball of vitality is in the shape of a bottle, then so is Eko's, but without the bottle. You don't see an empty bottle in Omo to fill.

You take another look at the Necromantic Energy forming the rest of the construct. Unlike the zombies you've encountered which mainly had their "tubes" of Necromantic energy enveloped entirely within the body of the corpse, the construct seems to have a thin web of Necromantic energy across the exterior of the bronze body. The body only, and not the legs which as expected have their Necromantic energy located in the core. You do not know if the construct has some mechanism to open itself to pass the "soul-ball" of vitality through- perhaps the denser stuff near the head- but you are confident that you could impair enough of the construct's "skin" to create a passage you could use.
So it's a bottle made out of necromantic energy holding vitality shaped like a soul. If we can move an orb of necromantic energy with steal vitality, then we can create a new spells that can move more complicated shapes of necromantic energy while keeping them intact. Trying to recreate the rope would be harder and more expensive because we would have to create the rope with new necromantic energy and then guide it around. It's much easier to just directly manipulate the existing necromantic energy and only add to it if more necromantic energy is necessary to repair the connections.

Angle

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2061 on: May 11, 2015, 11:05:49 pm »

It might have multiple souls in the bottle and we just can't tell cause we aren't looking closely enough. If we just take another look, we should be able to tell.
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The Alchemist

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2062 on: May 11, 2015, 11:16:06 pm »

One knot - but this thing might have the kids souls, too. And I'm not confident we can pick it up, either - I think we should aim to make the construct reverse the process it just did. In order to do that, though, we need to control it, and in order to be capable of that we should ask eko about conflict's of will between casters, or between casters and spells.
The knot refers to the structure of the soul, more or less, and I would think if it contained multiple souls that it would be remarkably larger in size in comparison to Eko's. It's possible that their souls have weakened and haven't disappeared yet, but if that's the case then it's most likely better for them to be in a living body than in the construct at any rate. As for command undead...I guess we could try once more, but that would leave us just barely scraping by in terms of mana if it fails. Assuming we follow parisbe's plan (which after his last message I am completely in favor of including the new "transplant" spell; although we may want to keep the soul steal spell in mind in case of emergency like the soul bottle breaking), which would require 1 mana for see vitality, 2 mana for impair undead/alter golem, and ? for the new spell (our most costly spell is 4 mana so we should assume this as the worst case). Right now we have access to a total of 6 mana so it all depends on how much the new spell would cost but we can assume 7 would be a decent worst case estimate(with 2 mana being the best case scenario, 1 for see vitality, 0 for golem manipulation if we can manage without mana, and 1 for mystery spell). I think it would be a very bad idea to let this sit overnight while we regenerate mana so we should try to resolve this now.

Furthermore we have no indication that a construct meant to steal souls would even have the capability to reverse the process, additionally the spell would probably require it to have eyes since the spell is probably line of sight. So we have an investment of 4 mana with no guarantee that the construct can even reverse the spell, since there would be little reason to make sure that it could whenever it was created(there simply isn't much purpose to do so if you didn't plan to utilize the forest the construct was released in).

Personally I'm in favor of Parisbe's plan, without using command undead.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2015, 12:42:11 am by The Alchemist »
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Descan

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2063 on: May 12, 2015, 10:28:36 am »

Honestly, and you guys may have said this but my eyes bleed at walls of text, I think the construct is a soul gatherer, and that when it goes back home, it 'bottles' the souls in some necromantic structure for long-term storage. Right now it only contains one soul, probably Omo's, because it didn't have a chance to store his soul yet.

Either that or it eats them, but that's a little less hopeful for being able to fix those kids.
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RAM

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2064 on: May 12, 2015, 03:57:38 pm »

... also, we seriously need to notethe direction it is trying to travel in, that is probably when the souls are transported to.
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ydeve

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2065 on: May 26, 2015, 06:44:17 pm »

if necromancers can only control things within their necromantic sight, and Eko can cast a ward that blocks necromantic sight, then have Eko cast that ward around you and the golem. That way, the being controlling the golem won't be a problem and you can then cast control undead on the golem and understand it better, hopefully using it to restore Omo's soul.
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Andres

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2066 on: May 26, 2015, 07:15:02 pm »

Worst-case scenario is the anti-necromancy magic will destroy the necromancy holding Omo's soul and our own ability to retrieve it and then Omo is lost forever.
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Parisbre56

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2067 on: May 27, 2015, 06:33:27 am »

if necromancers can only control things within their necromantic sight, and Eko can cast a ward that blocks necromantic sight, then have Eko cast that ward around you and the golem. That way, the being controlling the golem won't be a problem and you can then cast control undead on the golem and understand it better, hopefully using it to restore Omo's soul.
That's not going to work for two reasons:
1. We know that Nym can maintain the command undead spell about the same distance she can see with her  necromantic sight, however that was a single test with a single creature. Maybe the spell scales differently with vitality or levels, thus allowing greater range for high level necromancers or high vitality creatures. Furthermore, experienced necromancers might have ways to increase their range or maybe a more advanced form of command undead, something that can bond caster and zombie. That would explain the recent ward bypasses and give a more plausible explanation for this creature being under someone's control.
2. While a minor ward can block necromancy based senses and cause  necromantic creatures to avoid them, it doesn't block the spell itself. Nym was able to control zombies through the ward (remember the night we rescued the children?). So it's safe to assume it's the same for all  necromancy. You need something more powerful, like a greater ward or a sanctuary to ensure that necromantic energy won't be going in or out of an area. And you need to ensure that it won't affect  necromantic energy inside the ward so that Omo is not endangered. And even then, casting that will take about 30 minutes, ample time for bad things to happen. So it would be better in my opinion to start the soul transfer process now.
Worst-case scenario is the anti-necromancy magic will destroy the necromancy holding Omo's soul and our own ability to retrieve it and then Omo is lost forever.
I think the biggest danger (that we can see right now) is Eko mistaking the necromantic energy coming out of the construct as an attack and casting an abjuration. That's why we should make it clear that he should not interfere with whatever we're doing until we are done unless asked or we go unconscious or similar bad things happen.

Gwythur

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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-30
« Reply #2068 on: May 28, 2015, 10:48:03 pm »

Here's a thought - can we communicate with Omo's disembodied soul?
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Re: You are a Necromancer! Chapter 2-31
« Reply #2069 on: May 29, 2015, 12:39:46 pm »

Now this is interesting, but the implications are worrying. Do we have any sense of the location/source of the other presence? It could be that it wasn't just a lair it was fleeing to, but its master as well. It follows then that if the presence is away from us, and necromantic in nature, maybe try to command it while we're all inside of Eko's ward (or a new one if it's too far away). The ward's shielding effect might be enough to disrupt or remove whatever outside influence is keeping us from taking control of the construct.

Ask Eko if he knows anything about contests of will between casters.
Yeeeah that might be useful. Something like "There's something more here, not sure what."

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Command undead once more, Attempt to imitate the presence through empathy, basically you are playing copycat with the other presence.



   Eko stands up straight, leaning towards you expectantly. "Well?"
   You lick your lips nervously, phrasing your words carefully. "Eko... what do you know about contests of will between casters?"
   Eko grows very quiet. "Nym, are you-"
   "Eko, please- we may not have much time. Something is directly resisting my spells. Something intelligent."
   "I see." Eko murmurs. "Sometimes, two Wizards will attempt to manipulate Order in the same way, at the same time; perhaps because they are incompetent teammates, or rarely because they are fighting with their magic. The particulars differ depending on the spell, but usually the more skilled and experienced Wizard will eventually be able to impose their will and block the effects of the other. It is said that this can happen when Order Wizards try to directly neutralize Chaos Shaman as well, and was common during the Pacification." Eko's low voice gains urgency. "If you are up against the Necromancer-"
   "Then I won't let him stop me from saving Omo." You say harshly, turning back to the construct.

   You take a deep breath to calm yourself, trying to ignore Eko hovering over your shoulder. You were not expecting another presence to oppose your previous attempt at command, but now you're ready for a fight. Controlling the construct is the key to restoring Omo; it may be able to directly reverse the soul-stealing process, and even if it can't a closer study of its mind and abilities could yield priceless insight into that process. The construct is at your mercy. You will prevail in this contest of wills. You have to.

   ... You Command Undead once more, but it seems you are not the only one ready for a rematch. Your sense of the construct is even more tenuous this time, and every time you attempt to assert your dominance you feel your control crumble, blocked by that foreign mind. However, instead of fiercely driving you away and shattering your spell, this time the other presence seems... hesitant. It does not allow you to gain full control, but it also does not block you out.

   Your sense of the construct is too weak to feel what happens next, but with your own eyes you observe the Necromantic Energy located in the construct's head shift and change. It begins near the unidentified structures of Necromantic Energy located on either side of the head; new strands of Necromantic Energy appear seemingly from nowhere and pool deeper inside the creature to make... something. You have no idea what it is just by looking at it; it is small and flat and somewhat ornate, with a tiny amount of Vitality from the construct's network rerouted through it. It's nothing you couldn't make yourself if you were so inclined.

   Almost as soon as that structure is completed, the foreign presence controlling the construct seems to vanish. You quickly gain full control and waste no time celebrating before assessing the construct. You find no shred of the presence remaining, but you do not want to take the chance it could come back.

   The unidentified structures at either side of the construct's head are sensory in nature, but they are not eyes or ears; they give you an impeccable sense of where You are yourself. It is almost like they are a shared limb; you know how far apart the structures are from your hand as well as you know how far your hands are from your shoulder. They are quite sensitive, and from the slight differences in distance between the two structures you think you could easily determine what direction your body is in relation to the construct.

   The soul-sac remains opaque to you, not because some other presence is controlling it but because it truly is not a part of the construct. If the construct is a chest, then the probable soul is an item within, with no obvious way to control it.

   You try to learn how the construct formed the rope, but to your dismay you find that there is no structure that seems like it could do anything of the sort. Further, there is no mind to discover, no latent imperatives for the construct to act upon, no instructions it could use to steal souls or even navigate Aloclesno; it lies still and quiet on the forest floor with no urging from yourself. Eko has noticed and asked you a question, but you are too busy to hear.

   While it has no mind, it does have a rather crude memory... of a sort. The memory is held in the structure that was created just now while you watched, so you doubt it has existed for long. The memory itself is an image; more of a picture or a drawing, as it seems to be stylized and exaggerated. It depicts a tree much like any other in Aloclesno, but far larger and fatter with a gnarled knot midway down the trunk. Weathered roots seem to roil beneath the tree, casting dark shadows on a gaping hole in the earth below them.

   You aren't sure what to make of that, and dismiss it as unimportant for the moment. Full control of the construct has given you some knowledge of how it works, but no easy answers on how to cure Omo.

Spoiler: You (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Your Spells (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Omo Thunderjaw (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Eko Cleanvise (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Eko's Spells (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Notable Figures (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Planned Experiments (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Maps (click to show/hide)
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