14 KiB
[RT][HF] A Practical Guide to Evil Book 3: Chapter 47: Offers
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Author: u/Yes_This_Is_God *
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URL: https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/chapter-47-offers/
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Score: 53
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Created: 2017-11-27T05:04:49
Post:
Comments:
u/ForgottenToupee [+19] (53 minutes later)
“Akua’s Folly” has a nice ring to it.
u/leakycauldron [+17] Imperium of Man (2 hours later)
Diabolist is not the type of name you graduate from. Bumbling Conjurers might retire, Ashen Priestesses might take a desk job and settle down, but Diabolist are killed or kill themselves.
u/Oaden [+11] (5 hours later)
I don't think any Villain retires.
Maybe some of the serving names like captain conceivably could (If she weren't a hulking monster) but no Assasin, Black Knight or Warlock will go peacefully.
u/leakycauldron [+8] Imperium of Man (5 hours later)
None? Villains get redeemed and stop all the time. Tricksters see the error of their ways. Cursed are cured all the time.
u/NebulousASK [+2] (4 days later)
Diabolist could graduate to Dread Empress.
u/MaddoScientisto [+15] (5 hours later)
I pretty much loved the moment Catherine went Darth Vader on the envoy
u/CouteauBleu [+10] We are the Empire. (19 hours later)
This is getting egregious. How many of Akua's associates and servants can Catherine maim/kill before the others start to get a clue a realize that associating with Akua is a severe drain on your life expectancy?
u/DCarrier [+3] (a day later)
Maybe Akua threatened their family.
u/None [+7] (a day later)
Maybe
I don't think she even bothers at this point. With a Name like Diabolist, that kind of threat is implied.
u/DTravers [+4] (17 hours later)
A shame she couldn't have interrupted her mid-sentence.
u/um_m [+2] (a day later)
That's what I thought immediately after reading that dialogue
u/DTravers [+5] (a day later)
"This one feels power comparable in scale to a Prince of Sum-urk...,"
"I do not tolerate spies, Akua."
u/AurelianoTampa [+13] (14 hours later)
If I'm understanding Still Water correctly, the citizens of Liesse are not yet dead, right? More like they're just a ritual away from becoming undead?
I'm really not sure what Cat can bring to bear here so far as "hard measures" go. She's got a ravaged army, warp portals through Arcadia, the power equivalent of a Fae Prince, four Named (besides herself), and... that's it. She's going up against a force with a flying city, a bunch of mages, a Named, a potential 100k strong undead horde, and an as-of-yet-unnamed WMD.
What could she do to help level the playing field?
Portal or fly (on Zombie 3.0) Thief to Liesse to have her Yoink! something shiny. Targets could include Diabolist's multi-dimensional scrying artifact, captive members of the Watch, the WMD (if it's an item), or part of the Still Water ritual (if it has physical components).
Kill Akua's dad. Removes a very powerful mage, and will wreak havoc on her emotional state. Maybe. Problems abound with this - he's safe in the city, he's a powerful caster, etc. No idea how this would happen unless Thief could Yoink! him too.
Figure out some way to kill the fae royalty that Akua has captured and powering her wards. Maybe that involves negotiating with the King and Queen? IIRC, that captive is powering Liesse's flight. At least taking the city down will help level the playing field.
Maybe Pickler's got some good siege schematics for downing a flying target. Mortars loaded with goblinfire?
It's a good time for Hierophant to make a miracle...
If Cat can get to Liesse, she could potentially use Break or Fall on the city to take it down.
Forces that likely can't be used:
Malicia can provide advice, but no real support... unless she's fine with Cat using portals to bring more Legions from Praes to Callow. Huh. Maybe that WILL work.
The Calamities are out of action for the time being - last we saw them, Black is seriously hurt, Captain is possibly dead, Warlock is exhausted, and Ranger was doing her own thing in Arcadia. Assassin is... MIA? I think? So the odds of them sweeping in is slim.
Reinforcements from other cities in Callow are possible (especially with Arcadia portals), but they're less trained than the Legions and hate Praes. Even with Cat to act as a figurehead, I don't see additional Callowans being added to her ranks.
Getting help from a Good aligned nation is pretty much impossible, as Still Water alone would launch a crusade. This needs to be taken care of in-house.
From where I'm sitting, grounding the flying city is probably the only way to even the playing field a bit. And by grounding I mean "knock it out of the sky." It removes a huge tactical advantage, will likely reduce Diabolist's forces (and that includes the almost-undead army), and lets Cat's forces choose the battlefield. But I have no idea how they'll do that.
Thoughts?
u/haiku_fornification [+6] (16 hours later)
Cat uses Fall - it's super effective!
Names are huge power modifiers. Adjutant could potentially use Find to locate the flying fortress and even though we know Fall doesn't literally make things drop to the ground, aspects do develop according to the needs of the story.
In addition, Cat has Hierophant. If she wants the city to fall, it will fall. The question is - is she willing to kill a hundred thousand people in the process? And if she is, who's to say their deaths won't be used in some elaborate ritual concocted by the Diabolist? It's one thing to start a war, it's another thing altogether to be directly responsible for so much death.
I agree with most of your points however I think we're seeing a transition in power within the Empire and Malicia will heavily push for Cat to take charge of the rest of the Legions rather than being hands off. Cat is basically Black's replacement so it makes sense to promote her as much as possible. She will be the "muscle" of the Empire, so to speak. Besides, the Diabolist is Malicia's direct political enemy and a rallying banner for all the nobility. It's in her best interest to remove her as quickly as she can.
u/melmonella [+4] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (15 hours later)
I am currently wondering why Cat can't walk into liese with her Arcadiawalk and do the ritual herself to get an instant zombie army already within the city of her enemy. The essence of sorcery is usurpation and all that.
u/CeruleanTresses [+6] (a day later)
Her preferred outcome probably involves the civilians remaining alive.
u/melmonella [+2] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (a day later)
I mean, alternative is giving Akua 100k in zombies. There is no realistic way to have her cake and eat it too, I don't think.
u/CeruleanTresses [+3] (a day later)
Sure, I think it's entirely possible she might make that decision as a "lesser evil" thing. Personally murdering a city's worth of her own people for a tactical advantage, on the grounds that they're fucked anyway, would be a pretty dramatic character moment--a culmination of her slide toward rationalizing increasingly terrible acts, the kind of thing that might either shock her out of the path she's on or solidify her commitment to it. But that would probably be a last resort. I expect her to at least try to find a way to save them.
u/ricree [+2] (a day later)
Malicia can provide advice, but no real support.
Remember that Malicia wants the superweapon to get used. She has plans to slap Diabolist down, but the whole point of those plans is that the weapon is demonstrated first before she swoops in and steals it away.
u/melmonella [+5] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (a day later)
Yes, she also kinda needs Cat to sucesfully kill Akua. She can easilly tell Cat what the weapon is and how to (maybe) not get killed by it, as long as it's certain weapon will be used at least once.
u/ravenclawboy22 [+10] (3 hours later)
The price Cat is going to pay to deal with Diabolist would be enormous. I'm not sure I'm prepared to know. I also hope Cat would transition into a new name during this debacle.
u/CeruleanTresses [+2] (a day later)
Someone suggested she might preemptively zombify the citizens of Liesse herself in order to add them to her own armies instead of Akua's. That would be a bleak price indeed. I hope she finds a way to save them, but you never know.
u/aeschenkarnos [+11] (18 hours later)
“I don’t think deep enough in Creation to throw those down that would convey how little they mean to me,” I cheerfully retorted.
... what? Maybe "I don't think there's a well deep enough ..."?
u/None [+8] (11 hours later)
I wonder if it's going to be explained at some point why Cat is the last scion of Winter and the Seasons!Fae in general.
Did Akua's bindings keep the other Princess/Prince of Summer in captivity through the Queen's call(maybe in a pocket dimension)? Thus there must be balance of a conveniently Prince strength as noted in this chapter?
Or is simply that the King of Winter granted Cat free will by restoring her heart and releasing her from vassalage before the transformation of the Fae was complete.
u/FeluriansCloak [+6] (13 hours later)
I read it as the latter. That being released when she was made her the last of the winter fey, which upped her strength again. (Which is why hierophants framework from the last chapter wasn't enough. )
u/None [+2] (14 hours later)
Also, thinking about how much trouble the Princess gave Cat... She now has that much raw power to bring to bear!?
u/everything-narrative [+14] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (5 hours later)
Akua, you do not understand what drives the Carrion Lord and Malicia. You could not pass the ideological turing test.
You live in a story, up to and including the belief that there is any version of this that does not end with Catherine Foundling's hands around your throat.
Because Cat knows this is a story, and she knows how stories go. Good guys win, bad guys lose. And when it comes down to it, you, Akua, is not the good guy by any stretch of the imagination.
u/Menolith [+17] Unworthy Opponent (20 hours later)
To her, it's not the destination, it's the journey.
She's very likely to lose, but in her eyes that is preferable to the sickening stagnation Black and Catherine are pushing. She will happily burn every bridge, city and herself to the ground if it means having her name seared in the history books, and there is always the chance that she pulls of a Dead King and carves herself something more.
u/everything-narrative [+3] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (a day later)
Good point.
But then, I think Akua is forgetting that you do not die at the end of one's terrible ‘journey.’
You only ever die in the now. When Catherine decides to punish you for your crimes, you will regret it in the now. You will feel incredible agony in the now. Your great accomplishments will be paling in the irrelevance of the last week as Cat flays you and turns your world into nothing but pain.
She has looked Contrition in the eye unflinchingly. She knows about inflicting it on others.
u/Menolith [+11] Unworthy Opponent (a day later)
Everyone who has ever reached for the throne knows that failure will mean a fate worse than death.
There's a reason only the most ambitious go for it, and Akua is no different.
u/everything-narrative [+1] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (4 days later)
Yes, but there is no victory to be had for Akua. Catherine Foundling is not a High Noble who can be outmaneuvered, she is the legacy of the Villain Who Won. Akua is the legacy of the droves of Villains Who Lost.
u/Menolith [+1] Unworthy Opponent (4 days later)
Callow has been conquered before, and Black has by no means won his endgame yet.
And, as I said, Akua knows what her legacy is. Her legacy is to shake the world and make peasants tremble at the mention of her name centuries after her death. I'm sure she has been aware that she will die an unpleasant death from the moment she could spell p-r-a-e-s, the time and place are just up in the air.
u/everything-narrative [+1] Coral, Abide with Rubicon! (4 days later)
Callowans are waving a banner that says justifications only matter to the just and following the closest thing there is to the daughter of the Carrion Lord. She is the vicequeen, and she holds council with the Dread Empress.
Callow is not conquered. There is no Callow anymore. Just a green Praes.
u/Menolith [+1] Unworthy Opponent (4 days later)
They aren't out of the woods yet. The state fracturing back into status quo is still very likely. Arcadia hijinks or not, if the key people (the Empress, Catherine and Black) fail and/or die the rest will almost certainly come crashing down. Akua intends to dethrone the Empress and neutralize Catherine, and Black is nearing the end of his story anyway. Praes and Callow need more time and pressure to truly unify in a more permanent manner.
u/aeschenkarnos [+3] (18 hours later)
“Isn’t it illegal for anyone but the ruling Tyrant to sit on a throne?” I asked.
Shouldn't this be "Emperor", meaning Praesi Dread Emperor/Empress? The Tyrant doesn't give a damn about laws, including Helike's.
u/Schuano [+4] (a day later)
The story really needs to settle the what Malicia's Name is vs. The Tyrant of Helike.
I always thought that the Praesi Name was "Dread Emperor/Empress"
u/LordGoldenroot [+2] (18 hours later)
Tyrant is just another title of the Dread Emperors/Empresses.
u/Menolith [+5] Unworthy Opponent (20 hours later)
Seeing how it's also a Name, it is weird to have it capitalized.
u/leakycauldron [+1] Imperium of Man (4 days later)
Not anymore she can't, she's locked into a rule of three.
But yeah, I could see her becoming a Tyrant, maybe.