>>>452810
>maybe simply analyzing the gauntlet would take less time than repairing it
Who cares about repairing it? The enchantment it had isn't a big deal, so if it degrades to the point where a new set can't be reconstructed from it it isn't much of a loss.


>>452838
Isn't there a Ring of Adamantine Might or something that gives a +3 and 5DR negation to natural weapons? Get one of those with Freedom of Movement, and a wand of Ghost Touch.

>>452838
We're selling the mask. It's specifically DIVINE fire, and we don't have anyone that can use that.

>>453094
Why not? We're divine, and the Ash Crow god fragment we ate a ways back had fire powers. It's likely available in our ability tree somewhere. If it's not already accessible through the weird magic channeling thing Vic can do.

>>453097
We have no idea how to use any fire powers at the moment, and besides, Viktor's powers resemble Warlock powers rather than Cleric powers, and Warlock spells aren't Divine.

>>453094
Viktor is a deity, and druids like Ivet are divine magic users.
Also, it resembles the ash crow and is part of a set. Let's try to not sell our plot hooks.

>>453100
It's for divine fire; does Ivet have even one fire spell? Besides, she's already gonna be wearing a full set of magical clothes. No room for another.

>>453425
Whoa, why would you give it to Ivet? I assumed WE would be using it. 'cause it's awesome

Guys the mask wasn't even part of the deal we can figure it out later lets stay focused

>>453854
>Nortin separates the deflection ring, the mask, the gauntlet, and the scroll out of the pile and gestures to the rest.
Oh, you're right. I suppose we can just keep hold of it for now.

I say get the Gauntlet examined, but have a talk with their dad on the conditions of letting him examine the gauntlet. Having him set everything aside is bad for us and their business, so I expect Nortin would be willing to let and help us add conditions that require him to work on other stuff at the same time. (Like the Storm Dancer's set for Ivet)

ChildOfAB 2012/09/26(Wed)03:21 No. 458131 ID: 4b44fc
File 134865489428.png - (369.79KB , 720x720 , 23.png )

You discuss with Nosa the sorts of things you could have to increase the power of your natural weapons. She explains that such items are more difficult and costly to make than simply putting a magical effect on a weapon itself, but that it is possible. You talk back and forth about different possibilities and she comes up with a couple of items. The first is a ring which should allow you to vary the corporeality of your attacks between able to affect ghosts and able to tear into adamantine. The other would allow you to empower all of your natural attacks with fire, electricity, frost, or acid, changeable at your command.
"The first one's definitely a ring. The second one could be, too, but I could probably also pull off a pair of gloves, maybe a cloak or mantle of some sort..." Nosa says. Adopting a curious expression, she slips her glasses into place and glances up at you. "Oh," she says, flipping the goggles back up on her head. "Hey, is that cloak you're wearing magical? I can't get a reading on what you're wearing with that...what is it, nondetection? Mind blank?"
"Wait, what? What does that mean?" you ask, genuinely surprised.
"I was just wondering if you were attached to that cloak or if I could make you another one. Maybe add this to whatever it does?"
"No, wait, hang on. Explain that nondetection or mind blank thing," you say.
Nosa raises an eyebrow. "You actually don't know? You've got some kind of effect active that blocks you from divinations. Nondetection is a weaker, more common spell that does it, but it can be beaten by a strong enough mage. Mind blank is serious business, basically unbeatable stuff. Are you wearing any magic items you haven't identified first, maybe?" You shake your head in the negative. "Well, I don't know what to tell you."
"Can I look through your goggles?" you ask.
Nosa laughs. "If you want," she says, taking them off her head and handing them to you. "Fair warning, they're a little disorienting."

ChildOfAB 2012/09/26(Wed)03:22 No. 458132 ID: 4b44fc
File 134865493095.png - (961.62KB , 720x720 , 24.png )

You raise the goggles to your face as you begin to ask, "So, what happens if someone tries to...woah-" You are suddenly distracted as you fit the goggles over your eyes. An infinite fractal of colors and shapes form themselves into magical symbols traced into the air itself, drawn into patterns layered on patterns layered on some hyperfocused pinpoint facsimile of the real world, shattering and remaking themselves each time you move your eyes. You glance down at the table, covered as it is with magic items, and suddenly massive quantities of new colors and shapes coalesce into being. A torrential flow of magical minutiae blasts out of everywhere at once and pours into your consciousness until you recoil.
You hear Ivet giggle. "Viktor?" she says. "I've never seen you dumbfounded before."
Nosa laughs, too. "Happens to everyone. They really take some getting used to."
You stare up at the wall, barely noticing their chatter. The first wave of patterns you saw re-forms before you. You try your best to make sense of it. "A trigger...A lot of triggers. I only see one connection, and a lot of things that just say nothing except that they're there. Let's see...when this plane connects to another one...find two points...and...bend something? Set them equal? So, if someone tries to come in from another plane, you send them somewhere else?" you suggest, trying your best to parse the massive amount of raw magical data.
"Wow, I'm impressed," you hear Nosa say, "That's pretty close. I guess you're seeing the dimensional lock on the building. If someone tries to teleport in or out, they just wind up back where they started. Even teleportation that begins and ends on the same plane has to go through the astral as a sort of intermediary, if only for a fraction of a second. The 'nothings' would be spells that conceal other spells, that conceal other spells. Security is all about redundancy."
You glance at Nosa, who is covered with too many clashing symbols, shapes, and colors to parse. Ivet's is simpler, but still hard to follow. You get that it takes mental input, and then input from reflected light, somehow outputs a lot of things like shapes and colors. You realize you're looking at her illusion hat, but you're not sure if you figured that out yourself or if you just put two and two together because you already know what her hat does. There's also something else that you quickly figure must be the ring of freedom of movement, but you can't figure out how it's supposed to work. Next, you look down at your own hand, but it's like your vision goes right through it to see more of the dimensional lock on the other side. Finally, you look at the gauntlet. The patterns are far more dense and aren't as uniform. There seem to be lines jutting through them, across which the symbols present undulate across a chasm of alternate forms. Try as you might, you can't make heads or tails of it.

ChildOfAB 2012/09/26(Wed)03:22 No. 458133 ID: 4b44fc
File 134865495840.png - (475.06KB , 720x720 , 25.png )

You tug the goggles off and start handing them back to Nosa, but Ivet quickly jumps up. "I wanna see!"
Nosa shrugs. "Knock yourself out."
You pass the goggles off to Ivet. "Anyway, what happens if someone tries to use a divination spell on me?" you ask.
"Depends," Nosa replies. "The most common forms of scrying prevention make spells that seek out you in particular fail, and spells that just happen to be looking in the same place you are ignore you. That'd be...hang on..." she looks off into the distance, gesturing as if performing some calculations in her head.
Ivet, now be-goggled, looks completely awestruck. "Woooooah," she says. She looks down at her hands in stupefaction.
Nosa snaps back to focus from her mental calculations and looks at Ivet. "Yeah, pretty crazy, right?"
"What...what is all this stuff? I don't get any of that stuff Viktor said at all," she says, still staring at her hands.
Nosa smiles. "On your hands? I'm guessing the ring, or that hat you're wearing."
"Oh," Ivet says, quietly nodding and bending her fingers, too lost in herself to acknowledge what Nosa said.
Nosa chuckles and turns back to you. "Anyway, yeah, the most efficient implementation of a nondetection item wouldn't extend to the item that's causing it unless that item is actually being worn, that would bump it up another level. If you wanted, you could take off the cloak and I could look at it. Maybe the shirt, or are you wearing an amulet? Those would be the most common culprits."
You blanch at the idea of removing clothing that's actually attached to your body. "You know, actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I do know what's causing it," you respond.
Nosa shrugs. "Suit yourself."
You spend a bit longer talking over some other options, and Ivet finally manages to pry the goggles off and give them back. Besides the immunity to grappling, the variable substance, and the energy switching items, you also get some basic protective gear, and incorporate an undetectable alignment spell into the communication amulets so it will affect both of you.
Finally, you bring up the issue of the mask and the gauntlet again. Nosa looks at the mask through the goggles for a bit, looking deep in thought. "Well, I'm not gonna lie, I think you paid way too much for it. I'll tell you what, I could buy it off you for what you paid, 42k, hold on to it for a while, then chuck it dad's way when we don't have any big orders coming in and keep you updated on what comes out of it, maybe give you dibs on the first set if it turns out to be something you're into. That's as high as I'll go, though. And this thing..." she picks up the gauntlet and turns it over in her hands, "Damn, Nortin was right about this thing. I don't think we could get any information out of it if I don't toss it dad's way today, though. Could probably recreate it later. I'd have to ask him to get a precise estimate, and I wouldn't want to do that unless you were definitely going for it. I'm betting somewhere from 250-300k, though."
You realize you've got a little short of 100k left, so that's not feasible unless you cancel the rest of the order entirely. "Do you have anything that could keep it fresh for longer?" you ask.
Nosa shakes her head and chuckles. "In the time it would take me to make something like that, it wouldn't matter anymore."
You think hard about what is hopefully your final purchasing decision, and also consider how helpful and useful Nosa and Nortin have been. While looking contemplatively at the items on the table, the subtly thumb your sending stone. "Very helpful duo, possible allies, invite them out for drinks after this?" you think towards Ivet. When you glance up at her, she smiles and nods.

What were the prices for the custom things we asked Nosa For?

Well, that sucks. Even selling the mask, before the stuff in this update we'd barely have been within' range of that estimate.

I still say we hand over the gauntlet though, as the stuff we're getting Viktor should be things we can cover/get around with his magic. I might also like the fact that having less gear will force us to use and experiment with said magic instead of trying to rely almost wholy on his brute force like we did last fight.

She only thinks the mask is useless because she doesn't know Viktor is divine! I say we hang on to it. It'll be useful if we ever unlock the Ash Crow's fire trick.

pt the mask on and see if you can use it.

I agree, keep the mask. thrash that gauntlet though, it's done.

>>458133
Eh, try on the mask to get a feel for it. Or you could look at it via the goggles to get a better idea of if its effects would work on you.

I'm betting the answer is no, though, which means selling it. Also, trash the gauntlet since we won't be able to afford the cost of duplicating it, and I personally think we should try to cover our tracks a little. If we handed it over to be analyzed, and the smith realized what happened to it, he might figure out what we are.

>>458133
"That goes way outside my budget, but I get the feeling your dad would want to at least study the gauntlet anyway. He can have it now; I'll see if I can arrange for payment later.
If it helps his research, I know what the original enchantment was. It created a shadow gauntlet on the opposite hand that drained life on touch and used that to heal whoever the real gauntlet was touching.

On an unrelated note, how much do goggles like that cost?"

I think we're paying too much for stuff we can get more easily.
Orange Prism Ioun stones are slotless magical items that give +1 caster level, which is what Viktor would get from the mask since he doesn't have any fire spells. They cost 8,000, the mask costs 42,000. We could get one for Ivet too and still have more money. The mask might be worth it if we were a divine caster that specialized in fire, but we specialize in water and I'm not even sure our magic counts as divine. Could be worth it when Ivet learns Flame Strike but she's going for a lightning themed thing so meh.
We could probably just explain exactly what the gauntlet does. I bet they could make us one that does exactly the same thing for far less money and time than repairing this one. We could probably break it again in the same exact way if we had to. We wouldn't get the rest of the set, but positive/negative energy isn't really Viktor's deal either.
And those goggles, while cool, are obviously doing something besides just identifying spells. We could get them to make us something that grants a constant arcane sight spell, which would let us see magic without tripping balls. Maybe something to boost spellcraft checks too, since that's the skill related to figuring out what sort of magic you're looking at. I bet that would cost less than their Artificer LSD glasses.

>>458268
Only 8,000? What version are you playing?

I say go ahead and sell the mask with the deal that we get dibs when the get around to duplicating the set, since so many people seem against keeping it, this way we get our money back with the chance of getting the full set later when we learn more about what we and ivet can do. The gauntlet seems bet to just leave with them though do see if telling them the original core enchant on it would help speed things up. As for the caster level stuff i think we should hold off until we have a better understanding of what we do actually classifies as in terms of how we cast spells and what spells we cast, while what we believe we understand of our nature would imply what we do should be divine magic, the method we use doesn't match the commonly known ways to cast divine spells. And just assuming what we do is divine with what little we've done seems stupid when there is no reason to think a god couldn't learn arcane magic if he felt like it. Especially after we've had someone who knows magic tell us what we do seems to be warlock based.

>>458268
Like >>458299 said, the orange ioun stones cost more than 8k. They cost 30k according to this table I'm looking at now. The mask is better only if you use fire divine magic, OR have more pieces.

We are really better off selling it than using it, unless Viktor suddenly gains fire magic. Besides, if we sell it to these guys we can buy it back later if it turns out we have a use for it!

problem, the author specifically said ioun stones don't EXIST in this setting.

>>458303
When did he say that? Because he has a post in disc that says otherwise

>there's a whole cycle of crystalline third eyes that, when activated, attach themselves to your forehead and do stuff, like allow you to dispel magic. There's also Ioun stones, which are little crystals that float around your head. Though, there's no Ioun in my setting, so we can just say that the equivalent (Gharliz) has enough fashion sense and enough empathy for forgetful artists to make them not do that. They do some neat things, like boost your stats, absorb spells, make you not need to breathe, or give you some slow regenerative capabilities. They tend to be pretty expensive, though, since they're slotless. An equivalent effect on a magic item worn on an area that makes sense for the effect costs less.

It's possible Victor could use the artifact to unlock his fire powers that he theoretically has from eating what was probably another chunk of himself who had fire powers. Maybe. Might as well fiddle with it a bit. If nothing comes of it, sell it.

Definitely sell the gauntlet.

>>458357
Its not that they don't exist i think, it's that they function a little different, its hard to make out what he was saying in the third sentence of your quote i think he left something out. But it does say they are more expensive i think

The reason for analyzing the gauntlet is not so that we have an interesting gauntlet with effects that, while unique together, are not all the uncommon in pieces. It isn't even to get a set of magical artifacts with shadow powers, though those are always cool. The reason for analyzing the gauntlet is to understand on a fundamental level how Viktor did what he did, and how it could be done again. I do care a bit about what the gauntlets could do, but I care a lot more about what VICTOR did to THEM. Bringing back the dead is a thing that went away along with the oceans when the god of the abyss disappeared, and I don't believe simply eating people is going to be enough to bring it back. Too much of what Victor does is instinctual. We know we can produce energy bolts, but cannot do it on command, and don't know why. Given Victor's demonstrated ability to understand magic that OTHERS use, there is little reason for it to remain that way. My preference would be not only to have the Forge look at the gauntlets, but to be present and wearing a pair of these goggles while it happens. Possibly we could even provide insight.

I mean, on examining the gauntlets, Nortin said:
>"There's a conduit to the plane of shadow, which I guess could have been used as a buffer between a separate link from the positive and negative energy planes... If that link was there, though, it's been blown so wide open that it's unrecognizable... I don't know though, the positive and negative energy planes aren't coterminous, so I have no idea how that crack would have formed, or through what medium"
Even that cursory glance tells us something, because the answer to his question is the basis of Victor's powers.

Sell her the mask, since it's of no real use to us now anyways. Other than that, I'd consider our shopping trip concluded.

>>458608
I agree with this. Forge-guy being occupied with the gauntlet is a drag in the short-term, but it looks like our best long-term investment.

>>458646
>>458608
There's really no reason to assume we'd be able to find out anything like that from it. If we want to learn what we're doing, we'd be better off getting something like Nosa's goggles. But I don't know if even that's really needed.

>>458176
Well, we may as well give it to them. It's not like we really need it for anything.

>>458646
>>458608
It could be a drag in the mid-term too. If the forge becomes sidetracked with it, it could be MONTHS before he does anything else.

I want to avoid that so that we get Ivet's protective gear done, AND I want to avoid that so that we don't get exposed.

>>458646
I propose waiting for the short term commissions to be done before doing anything with the gauntlet.

>>458693
At that point the gauntlet would be utterly and completely useless to everybody.
It is literally now or never.

Ok, I'm going to address all these statements now:
Within 24 hours the gauntlet is going to be a worthless hunk of junk. Therefore, any time-sensitive information he could gather WOULD BE collected by the end of 24 hours.

After that point the gauntlet will stabilize, and there will be no further loss of potential information over time.

We give him the gauntlet and come back in 24 hours. At that point we tell him that since it's stabilized he needs to set it aside and study it when it won't get in the way of his business.

>>458702
This is probably the most sensible thing I've ever heard from you.

>>458702
Okay, that would work as far as keeping our schedule intact.

The problem of blowing our cover still remains. What could we possibly say that would distance ourselves from the way the gauntlet was used? Someone stole it from us, used it to resurrect someone else in a massive display of power, then just left it there for us to pick up? I don't think there is ANY believable story we can give him, without also sacrificing his ability to put the information in the proper context. If we make it known that resurrection is possible via an item such as this gauntlet, we will at the same time make it known that we did it.

We can't keep our cover and also get information about resurrection via further examination of the gauntlet. The cursory examination that this guy did with the goggles was safe, because he can't tell what was done with it. It gave us some clues as to how it was done.

Personally, I think Viktor can do it again with any magical item that deals with transfer of energy between planes, and connects to the Positive Energy Plane. It doesn't require a connection to the Negative Energy plane, because that one doesn't actually have anything to do with the afterlife. Viktor has to reach into whatever Outer Plane houses the dead one's soul, and bring it into the Prime Material Plane. The Positive plane connection is needed to heal the body.

Look, let's just sell the gauntlet to them and say that we aren't interested in getting it repaired or reproduced but suggest that maybe their father would be interested in taking a look anyway. In all likelyhood his children will decline to offer him the opportunity because it will lose them money to have him distracted like that unless we pay to have it fixed. Which we aren't going to do.

>>458706
If these guys get far enough in their investigation to find out what we are, they will probably have found out enough for it to be worth the risk. We have been entirely helpful towards them, and they (forge-dad in particular, who will be the first to know) seem much more likely to want to study us than to freak out in a troublesome way.

>>458721
You're talking about a guy who made "use a necromantic ritual to tear my son's soul out of his mortal body and put it into this golem" his thesis project. This guy is pretty clearly Evil, as in the alignment, like Viktor, and possibly epic level. I'm not entirely sure we'd like whatever "study us" entails. While you can get on Viktor's good side and be okay, I wouldn't want to be studied by this guy any more than I'd want to go out to dinner with Vik.

>>458726
Well said.

>>458726
Heh. "Necromancy is evil!". Cute.

No, if you were paying attention you would have noticed that they're all still on speaking terms with each other. Being turned into a golem unwillingly isn't something you roll your eyes at and say "Oh, you". Further, he is abiding by Nosa's rejection, which is rather conclusive proof that he won't force her. That's fairly definitive proof that Nortin was willing.

Next, consider what he said to Nosa. The "before you wear out and die in front of me" bit. He's terrified of losing the people he cares about, and that's motivating him to do what he can to keep them with him as long as possible. While it could be called a selfish motivation, it's certainly not evil.

Since Nortin was his thesis that means Nortin was also his first sentient test subject; he's stubborn and has a lot of pride, but most people would opt to test a new procedure on somebody with whom they have no emotional ties. Since Nosa has rejected his offer of the procedure he can clearly do it again, which leads This strongly suggests it was therapeutic, but isn't definitive.

So the subject was willing, the motivation was fine, and the context was at least acceptable. That leaves only the mechanics of the act, and necromancy has a worse reputation than it deserves.

>>458726
"like Viktor" really doesn't help your argument. Anyways, seems pretty clear Nortin was willing and if Forgedad used his, however willing, son for his thesis when he's expressed unhappiness with the prospect of losing family it's very doubtful he's willing to use unwilling test subjects. Add in said individual helping his other research, being on good terms with his family, and one hell of a threat if something goes wrong? I don't see that happening.

These are the people I'd currently trust most with our secret

>>458132
Vik's flesh is invisible to the goggles.

>>448170
Vik's natural form has three eyes, but he can only use two while disguised as two-eyed creatures.

We don't get magic goggles. We get a magic monocle and have it in front of his third eye inside his head.

>>458772
Never in TGchan have I once heard an idea better than this.

You are a genius.

>>458772
Okay, this is fucking brilliant. Let's do it.

chirps 2012/09/30(Sun)14:18 No. 459014 ID: 34cbef
File 134903990594.jpg - (24.69KB , 450x268 , 3658.jpg )

>>458772
shit, what? from seven? my brain kinda hurts, but okay lets do it.

1. >>458772 Yes please! Although we should test that monocules on the third hidden eye work before doing it exactly that way. We just reverse engineered a few spells within moments of wearing them so its a must have item, we should probably have something like that all the time! (it is possibly just a simple read magic spell? ideally learn to replicate it with our natural abilities)
2. The point of selling her the fire mask is that it is the only known item of a set and her father is uniquely able to recreate the ENTIRE SET from just the mask, not only that but selling her that mask and then getting a duplicate of it once reverse engineered will net us a gold profit as well as having the option to buy components of the rest of the set. So definitely do that.
3. The gauntlet has to be studied NOW; even if they will last 24 hours the sooner the better, it would suck if we need 10 hours of study to fully duplicate it and only end up having 5 because we dallied. The children don't want to distract their father with it because it LOOKS like junk, they have no idea why its worth studying. If we want him to do so we need to give him more info. I suggest we do so. Repaired is also not sufficient we will need it improved so it does not explode in future uses.

I agree with those suggesting we give them more info... Particularly with everything in >>458608
I doubt that they would turn on us and besides we are plenty strong.. the potential to acquire resurrecting power is too important to squander as well as properly researching self.

We should ask to see the father again so we can explain some things to all 3 so we don't have to repeat ourselves.

Explanation:
A. The gauntlet intended operation is that it creates a shadow duplicate of itself on the other hand, the shadow gauntlet drains life energy, the physical gauntlet then uses it to heal a target.
B. Having multiple hands caused a shadow glove to appear on each one and allowed simultaneous draining of many people at once, a factor that contributed to it overloading.
C. The gauntlet was broken by overloading it to the extreme, which resulted in a massive explosion... as well as an actual resurrection. (biggest pitch, would justify prioritizing it over the storm gear)
D. I am not certain about my ancestry but I believe it involves some extraplaner/divine origins. Used self as one of the sources for the draw (while it is a lot to reveal, it keeps enough hidden and lets them draw wrong but still important conclusions and is an important thing to note if we wish to replicate or improve the gauntlet).
E. Own ancestry is powerful, the nondetection/mind-blank is a result of it rather then any item.

The reason for this level of disclosure is because the more he knows the more likely he is to be able to repair the gauntlet and perhaps even replicate it and improve it. If you feel a certain point of disclosure goes too far please note which one it is rather then scrapping the whole of it (its why I seperated them).