Endgame

"If only that could apply to the living..." remarks Masson, his voice unreadable. "...Your pardon, if you would call it that, is appreciated." "No. We don't socialize with other specters, not ones from here. But... I'm sure there are other spirits lingering here. This place reeks of death, tonight especially." "But The Regret does not seek to enslave humanity. He wishes to be the one to force mankind into extinction." "Whims?" "You are just as naive as you were when you left the island, and back then you were a child." "Has it ever occured to you, Johon, that without context, there is no morality? I'm sure, in your eyes, slavery is bad, charity is good, murder is bad, saving people is good. But what if you're giving funds to someone who is wicked, or killing in self defense, or saving those who are evil or do not wish to be saved? There is right and wrong, that much is true. But without context, it does not exist. No single act is either good or evil without looking at the bigger picture. A bigger picture that you fail to see. Tell me, Johon. Do you see any wild life here? Fertile land? No. You don't. The only fertile land is on top of the mountain which once stood here, an altitude humans could barely even survive at, let alone live there to tend to a harvest. Wild life is shrubs. We lived on nothing but the corpses of fish and withered plant life for months! Look at your hands, Johon. I can see the tiniest traces of frostbite. Even when we had food, shelter, a labor force, the cold was still taking its toll on us. Tell me, how do you think it was without the Proggs? damn near unlivable! I lost two of my fingers, my wife lost her arm, my brother died entirely - and that's just from frostbite. We tried other solutions, as well, so don't you dare claim it was a whim. We were shipwrecked. We tried surviving. Then we tried time travel, a spell that was passed down to your parents. The very knowledge that saved you. But here is the thing, Johon, about our brand of time travel. You cannot change the past. History will correct itself - the only thing that can have even the tiniest of impact is the most extreme of changes, and these radical decisions were ones I couldn't make. So where did this leave us? The Lifespark. We scaled that mountain to find that forsaken thing again, rallied our powers, and tried to create new life. One misstep too many, and all of us would die. We were that desperate, Johon. It was our only option. You can say I'm partially responsible, which is true. But don't you dare say I was evil. I did what I had to out of pure neccesity. Nothing more." "However, we do intend to help. The Glasses were your first gift. The second gift will be information. For example... We think we know a way into the Citadel." "You're quite right. I can't tell you how to beat him, but I know this: He plans to devour the Lifespark. That thing is rumored to be created from the combined power of the gods, heroes of Heroica. If he takes all of its power... It's over, more or less. There will be no chance of stopping him. Already, a mere three embers burn within him, and it has made him immensely powerful. If he devoured the whole flame, he'd be virtually invincible." "The Regret's plan for devouring it, though, is impossible. So you have that going for you. The Lifespark is, at its base form, primal souls. Tons of them. Usually, touching it causes the user's soul to overflow and be swept away... Think of your soul as glass filled with water. You pour more in, and you make a huge mess. But The Regret only has half of a soul - his glass is half empty, so to speak. It has allowed him to cheat the system and leech a few embers off the Lifespark. But there is no way even someone like The Regret could possibly contain all of its power. He'd be obliterated if he tried. The only type of being that could possibly take the entirety of the Lifespark is a being which doesn't exist... Which, fortunately, is not something that can happen." "I wouldn't be so sure. If he made such a formidable citadel and built such an army, then he clearly has an end goal." "We all know he's insane. It wouldn't surprise me too much if there was no endgame to this plot. Perhaps he just wishes to die with his delusions of grandeur intact."

"I've outlined their purpose already. They're mere tools. We led you here so that you may communicate with us, but if you find a use for them, then that's all the better." "As for the information... You know of the Lifespark, do you not?"

"We never really haunted this place, per se... That means hanging around here a long period of time." "To the contrary, we were struggling heavily to even be visible. The Regret holds an iron grip over everything on this island... Almost all "life" here, if you can call it that, serves him. The waters are ruled by his tyrannical Ameobosses, and he has kept the sky here a perputual blizzard for quite some time now. He even tries to keep the dead out - the ones he doesn't want, anyway. Only through a lot of determination and the use of my successor's blasted "inventions" can we even be here. As you understand, Heroes, the hour has grown quite dire indeed... The Regret is planning something." "And although we've both departed from this world long ago, to see even the smallest fraction of it reshaped according to The Regret's visions is something we cannot allow. We've manifested here, our former home, for a short time to impart information."

"I was hoping to be able to see whether or not there was a rebellion. My first thought was to make a tool to communicate with the dead, so that I could gather information from Proggs who had died during slave labor... And thus, the Spirit Glass was born." "Then you made it so it only worked on spirits who wanted to communicate, defeating the purpose entirely. The Proggs didn't exactly like us, you see...." "Hush. Next, I tried to make a tool that could read their minds while still alive, and perhaps catch someone who knew about the Progg Uprising... So I made the Soul Glass." "Then it could only get surface thoughts and their current emotional state. Which was suaully something like "I wish these goddamned bastards wouldn't work me so hard", being slaves." "...You get the idea..." Says Daranza the Fifty Third, dejected.

"Their use is unlimited, as long as you remain on this island." "Oh yes, the mightiest of inventions, two shards of enchanted glass..." "They're working now, aren't they?" "Did they work back when you needed them, eight hundred years ago?" "Tsk..."

I hope this bit makes the whole segment before the dauntlet battle in 99 make more sense, contextually.

In between the party's almost comical struggle for the magnifying glasses, the lens eventually focuses on the two glowing orbs of light, both of them materializing into spectral, humanoid silhouettes. They speak. "That was an... Interesting display, to say the very least. Hmph. I am Daranza the First, creator of the Proggs." "Oh, you and your insistence on titles... I am Daranza the Fifty Third, creator of the Spirit Glass and the Soul Glass." "Uh, Mr. Blue Ghost the First, you made... us? You 8wheeze* made The Regret?" "...Yes, little one. Yes, I did." "Fortunately, my work was a little less disastrous than my predecessors. I present to you, the Spirit Glass and the Soul Glass..." The Spirit Glass: Allows spirits who are struggling to communicate able to speak easier. As its magic is tethered to the Abandoned Village, it is usable only on the Lonely Island." The Soul Glass: Allows the user to peer into the surface of any soul. Gives the use rtheir current emotional state and surface thoughts. As its magic is tethered to the Abandoned Village, it is usable only on the Lonely Island." If any of you crazy folks start using the Soul Glasson eachother, the "victims" are going to have to PM me on the matter. "Both are yours to take. There's quite a crazy story behind those two items, there is-" "How old that the younguest Daranza seems to be first to fall victim to senility. I hardly think they care for your "war stories" you spent locked in an Ether Lab. I'm sure you have a lot of questions, don't you?" What will the party do?

The black magnifying did not some malignant just from a cursory glance. the white one didn't, either, but for some reason the two balls of light were favoring the particular magnifying glass. Both had an odd sheen to them... They could each be used to detect something, but the party wasn't sure what. Only one way to find out...

Karie sweeps the Pews, finding nothing. The seats were rotten and waterlogged, and the books stroed in the back of them weathered away by the ages. The ink had faded and the pages ripped. Meanwhile, Johon and Boomingham begin to move the dais. "Not sure how much I can *wheeze* do, but... I'll try..." "I'll help as well." The combined might of three men (and the mnimal amount of help the twenty pound Punii provided), pushing away the platform and revealing a secret chamber below. The light dive down into the chamber, illuminating it. Even stadnign above the staircase to it, they could see the entirety of the tiny room. Two magnifying glasses sit on their own pedestal, the lights orbitting around one of the white magnifying glass. What will the party do? "Think we should pick it up?"

Been throwing around more boss rush ideas. Just as a note, since there was some confusion last time around: This is just some ideas I've been tossing about lately, and figured I'd put them up here to see what you folks think. This is definitely not going to show up in the near future, if at all. Showdown on Memory Lane The context of the previous pitch stays the same: Howard Dini has taken interest in the mining of several Memory crystals he found in a nearby, and hires heroes to do it. Before being mined, however, the crystals have an odd property: being able to manipulate the memories of those in Eubric and projecting them into the minds of others. They've taken quite a fancy to the memories of Heroicans. And, like all memories, they're twisting things arounda bit to make things tougher... The Quest itself The Quest would be reoccuring and go up semi-frequently. Each time a party enters Memory Lane, they would have a choice of four courses... >Advanced (Normal, Level 20+ overall reccomended) >Expert (Hard) (Level 30+ overall reccomended) >Veteran (Very Hard) (Level 40+ overall reccomended) >Master (Brutal) (Level 50+ overall reccomended) Other courses could be introduced over time. In terms of the enemies faced, all would be remixed and upgraded forms of previous boss battles. All would maintain their usual mechanic, but they would be buffed and have a new pool of specials and passive specials. Any bosses would be used only with the creator's permission/colloboration. Although HP, SP, and Special attack damage would be scalable, the boss monsters would have one restriction: Each enemy in a boss encounter would have a set pool of specials and passive specaislt that they could have, set at the beginning of the match. If you are knowledgeable about all of the boss's potential moveset, you can plan ahead and potentially wipe the floor with them. In terms of the quest's progression, the courses would have 5 bosses shuffled up in a random order, and one endboss. The party would only have 40 rounds to clear all six bosses, or time will run out. For example, here is a mock-up roster for a theoretical Advanced course: -Putrid Wyvern -Crozen's Revenge -Zed the Master Bed -Anarchic Draco -Blackhood and his Djinns -BOSS: Echo Aquos Every single time a boss is defeated, the party is given some options. In terms of loot: You can take the loot dropped by the bosses, OR you can forsake the loot and instead get a list of all of the possible enemies and their specials/passives in that boss battle. Essentially, treasure or intel. You can also choose to leave in between battles in the Boss Rush. Running out of time or suffering a TPKO would cause the party to lose half of the gold they gained in Memory Lane. Material loot gained would not be affected. Quit while you're ahead and take slightly less, or go for broke and lose a huge chunk of it? Completing the boss rush not only nets you the loot from whatever Endboss concludes the course you're on, but heroes would aso gain gold equal to the amount of rounds they have left times twenty. So, completing the rush with 10 rounds left equals an extra 200 gold for each party member. (Note that completing a first run of a course with that much time on the clock would be pretty unlikely.) Additionally, in order to keep things fresh, doing the course multiple times makes things harder and harder. First Run: Normal Second Run: 30 round time limit, but to compensate, higher gold reward for clearing it. Third Run: Same rules as Second Run, Endboss recieves a new variation. In the mock-up list earlier, Echo Aquos would become Abyssal Aquos. Fourth Run: ??? What this essentially amounts to is a more streamlined version of the boss rush I suggested earlier: Six foes, and only 40 rounds tops to clobber all of them. It's a finite challenge, and one that is designed to be replayed to discover new foes and potentially get intel on some of the others in order to shave as much time off the battles as possible. Of course, this niche may be completely filled by Sandy's new Fields of Glory, but I figured these random concepts are woth posting.

The two glowing specks continually brace themselves against the dais, as if trying to move it.

The party heads North to the Cathedral. The stone building still stood, but it too was old. The glass had spiderweb like cracks, and the stones had begun to erode and chip away from the wind. Two odd light - one blue, and one red - bob in front of the Cathedral door. They almost seem to recognize the presence of the heroes, and slowly begin to hover into the Cathedral. The party enters the cathedral, the interior not faring too well... The pews were old and beginning to rot, the floor covered in cracks and snow. Dust hangs idle in the air, as if frozen in time. A Dais sits in the front of the room: the two lights from earlier seemingly ram into it, signalling the party do to something... it seemed like, whatever entity the tiny orbs of light were, they had no means of communication beyond movement.

"You're *wheeze* right, it's just... I'm a kid, Boomingham. I'm just a child. Sometimes... I wish I was more ignorant of all *cough* this, you know...? I wish I didn't know that someone like The Regret existed. I wish that I didn't know that someone could be so thoroughly consumed by hatred, and become so evil... I'm just a kid, Boomingham, and it's *wheeze* all so overwhelming..." QM Note: Had internet problems all day! Big update coming tomorrow.

"The Princes were a whole *wheeze* lot weaker than The Regret. A lot of their power was actually just a tiny bit of the regret's that he *cough*, uh, "loaned" to them..."

The barrels are full of old food and supplies, ruined by the cold. The whip is covered in blue flakes - possibly chips off of Progg carapaces. Ancient Whip: An old whip that was once used to keep the Proggs in line. WP: 10/20 against Beasts.

Look, I've been trying to avoid exposition dumps. His wings were actually semi functional at that point - to use some vehicle terminology, they were "stalled", not actually permanently wrecked. Whacking them around again and then whacking about 25 boulders into his face paralyzed him, and he eventually hit the ground and died.

"Besides Prometheus, AKA The Regret, the other big three were *wheeze* Rhodus, Aquos, and Eidolon, the three progg princes. Each were about three stroies tall at the time of their death, and some of the most powerful - and *cough* deranged - proggs to ever live. Rhodus was the youngest prince, known for his cruelty. He developed the ability to bellow out hallucination posion, and make people see hallucinations. As you can probably guess, he *wheeze* used it as a torture device... Eidolon was the oldest, and a winged beast as well. He was the most powerful, not to mention brutal. He was full of rage until the very 8wheeze* end... Eventually Heroica clipped his wings and he fell to his death. I have no ill will towards Aquos, though, the middle child. He was *wheeze* born blind, and stayed blind until minutes before his death. he eventually came to his senses and helped us in ur first fight against The Regret, though, as a *wheeze* ghost."

The party, tension rising between them, forge to the East, shivering all the way - some more than others. There, they find a practical graveyard of homesteads. Cottages and houses succumbed to the snow, abandoned and forgotten. Only one derelict building is still recognizable as a house: And even then, it was in abysmal condition. The walls had caved and the roof had barely survived, the shingles now a termite infested mess. two spears stand in the house, partially buried in icy snow: Rhodus - Alex Rhodus - Crystal When the party was done searching, they could progress to the Northern reaches of the lost village.

i'm tempted to bid all of my money and never use the venom.

QM Note: Updates arriving within the next two/three hours, folks.

I spy a few 86 enemies in 104, Flipz.

"I'm wearing three layers, I'm... Okay." "And that is why I won't be able to meet the Town Watch taxes, Punii." Masson chuckles. "I believe we decided on East, but that utlimately falls to Erdathcath..."

"No, I'm fine, I'm f-fine... I'm just... Not used to *wheeze* snow... Like this. I'll be fine, Karie. I'm just wondering how you are all doing..." Punii finds himself buried in snow, slithering out of the fluffy heap. He stands against the wind. "And, uh, random question, how is your *cough* make up still on through this weather...?"

"This p-place is so *wheeze* cold... Is everyone staying *cough* warm?"

To the east laid more of the residential district, although eight hundred years of winter had almost laid waste to it. To the north, some sort of cathedral made of cobbled stone.