>>/quest/877782
This is some serious shit that's suddenly going on. Poor noxans :(

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this event. Wasn't Laertes supposed to be fictional? Someone's definitely getting mindf*cked here.

It could be that Laertes is real. A person or a manifestation of something.
But there's also a slight chance that Khoros did this. He was the one that had the mask, and until a few minutes ago he considered them to be hostile.
It could also be Melinoë. Who knows what she's like if she panics or goes crazy.
The strange thing is that.. it seems this happened when Melinoë's pattern came close to the Khoros' fragment.

Aside from terrifying implications of the latest update.... I find it equally dark that Penelope's (temporary) return to physical form was because all of the herbivore noxan were, presumably, brutally fucking murdered off-screen.

...Oh no, I know who it is. It's an alternate version of khoros that went bug fucking nuts insane. We're dead.

>>122194
That's not all either, mixed in with the pain and panic was the intense feeling of joy. Given that the Feed and Hunger was what Penelope was feeling due to the intense emotions, the only one that is unaccounted for is the Joy.

Melinoe could have a massive hardon for murder. She could've erased memories to hide her killings.
Or yeah it could be Khoros and he's secretly been evil this entire time. I don't think the extra Khoros signature was near the hallway though.

It's not like Raptie wants to tell us anything actually useful right now though.

>>122189
There's no green in the original image you ridiculous person. Boosting the brightness in the way you did it also boosted the color saturation, so some areas that weren't a perfectly balanced grey (due to the gradients or some other reason) showed up as greenish or blueish or purpleish.

Also Raptie isn't the kind of person to hide a secret in a way where we can't tell what it is once we find it.

We should hug our FEARs. The only way to conquer a fear is to confront it and come to terms with it or to avoid it forever, and I doubt that this fear is willing to leave.

>>122194
Ah, you called it.

Not entirely sure how we're supposed to deal with an evil version of Khoros, actually. His power is very dangerous, both in combat capability and ambush potential. Plus he's about to bring Laertes into this universe, or already has. Either we need to break the gate so he can't do it, or we need to just avoid both of them until we regain full control over our ethereal power and then kill Laertes with it.

It'd be easy. We already know Penelope was able to turn part of her body ethereal, so what we do is leave all of her body ethereal except for a single claw, then shove it into his heart.
Killing Evil Khoros would be much more difficult.

Maaan, we still don't know who/what the orange signature is. Maybe it's Laertes? You'd think his signature would be green though.

Also now we know why Raptie wouldn't let us tell Khoros there was a second signature associated with his color. That would've revealed the twist too early.

>>122203
Honestly? I had it written out for the last interaction with Khoros and forgot to put it in. It was basically, "I did not split off any fragments" but I don't think it would have revealed anything.

>>122204
Well I dunno about anyone else but it would've made it clear to me that there was a second Khoros, which meant it was an alternate-dimension Khoros, which meant he probably killed everyone.
Then I would've suggested to tell Khoros that, and asked which direction the exit was so that we could warn Melinoe.

Oh, so we are THAT much fucked.
We need to get your body back permanently ASAP.
I am still kind of lost with this, about this new Khoros and Laertes. But, could it be that he is an ethereal being? I mean, we are one, kind of, and we know that there is a ethereal world with creatures in it. So somehow Laertes existed there all along?

>>122207
Well, being able to control someone against their will is sortof like possession, which we can do just by being Ethereal.
I guess it wouldn't be too far off base to think that "Laertes" could be an ethereal creature able to possess people so long as he knew their name. It's not the long distance mind control attributed to Laertes but it's close.

On the other hand, maybe we don't have to worry about mind control at all. This evil version of Khoros isn't the same one from the original XenoQuest thread, so maybe his version of Laertes isn't as powerful? Or maybe he doesn't even have a version of Laertes and the mask has a similar connotation to our Khoros's mask. It's a symbol of fear rather than a real person.

Maybe it's better to remain skeptical until we have solid evidence there's an alt-universe Laertes that has mind control powers.
Like you know, The Brokehorn? He's got the same markings Laertes had under his mask.(I wish I had saved that image...) I'm quite curious as to what his deal is.

Man it would be a really dumb twist if Penelope believed Laertes existed so hard she became Laertes.

>This evil version of Khoros isn't the same one from the original XenoQuest thread

It more or less is

>>122210
He's missing an eye, though.

Seems reasonable to assume Brokehorn had a name-related power.

XenoQuest threads seem to follow common themes so I wonder if every noxan universe has a Laertes, a Khoros, and an Outissa? Perhaps the difference here is that this Laertes was defeated before he was able to grow too powerful.

Hey Raptie, does Penelope remember her parents?

>>122214
I dunno! Do you?

>>122215
So Penelope had no memories whatsoever at the start of the first thread?

>>122217
Not really, no! She knows what you know!

You know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if Brokehorn is the Orange/brown that keeps showing up on Penelope’s Ethereal Sight.

And if I’m right, then we’ve just gotta figure out why Penelope has a bond with Brokehorn.

>>122221
So... almost yes, then. We didn't know anything outside the context of that first thread that we didn't immediately get told by Khoros anyway.

That's never been clear, you know. Once we found out we were controlling a person and weren't just fragments or whatever, I just assumed there were other memories associated with that person that we just had to think to ourselves about or something.

>>122222
But Raptie allready said that "we" are Brokehorn. If that is true, and i am no saying that Raptie is laying, then he might be from the same universe, but it has nothing to do with her. We are part of Brokehorn, we are not Penelope.

>>122244
>We are part of Brokehorn, we are not Penelope.
Duh, I know that.

I’m just saying that Brokehorn could be the Orange/brown that keeps showing up on Penelope’s Ethereal Sight and that would mean that Penelope has some kinda bond with Brokehorn.

The only way to know for sure is if we can restore Brokehorn’s memory to see if he/she/it is Penelope’s friend.

Hey! Taking a break from updating XQ for a week or so in order to let my brain recharge! <3

>>122245
That i didn't negate. I think so as well. I mean, come on, there is no way that every single person that stands in that roof is not connected somehow. I mean, it is the SAME roof EVERY TIME!

Hey, ya'll - I realize I violated a promise I made earlier, which means I have a question for people:

Would people prefer that I deploy the reset button I planted and roll the story back to a point of your choosing (to at least before a shit-ton of people died)

or

Carry on as it is right now?

>>122307
Could quest have prevented their deaths and just failed to do so? I'd say no

If it was going to happen and now you want to give quest the chance to go back and save them? I'd say yes.

>>122308
Addendum: Is Glinp involved? Definitely yes then.

>>122307
roll back to Astarte rubbing her cherry picker on the wall. (I KNOW THAT SOUNDS LIKE I JUST WANT MORE ASTARTE LOVE WITH MY TRACK RECORD BUT ITS ACTUALLY A GOOD RESET POINT!!!!)

> >>122307 >deploy the reset button
Make it so.

The reasoning doesn't matter.

>>122307
Let the dead rest, foul necromancer-slash-chonomancer.

>>122307
Having a chance to save the not-noxans would be nice, but the story progresses one way or another. Perhaps Amaranth manually winding time back would help move the story in this direction?

>>122314
As a clarification, I would vote for a reset as long as it is done in-story.

Don't stop Brokehorn's adventure though, I wanna see how things go for him.

another addendum: What I would do is move it back to a point where we can stop and get rid of evil khoros. Give /quest/ the tools to stop him and see if we can figure out what to do to fix it.

Carry on with it

Carry on

Carry on.

Carry on.

>>122307
>the reset button I planted
You planned to reset it?

Do whatever makes the tone of the quest more consistent.

>>122307
I say carry on.

But if you want to keep someone alive, then you could have Fierce-Stalking-Death Flowing-Swift-Dances as a survivor but she’s heavily injured.

...hold on, you didn't say what promise you broke or what action would keep that promise.

You should keep your promises.

>>122414
The one where Raptie said she wouldn't really hurt or kill her characters.

>>122415
I thought that was more of a couldn't than a wouldn't.

>>122422
Raptie feels otherwise.

Here is the meanings behind the name "Zelus"

"Zelus personifies dedication, emulation, eager rivalry, envy, jealousy, and zeal" (the Greek God of Jealousy and Rivalry)

Zelus the Bug - the assassin bugs - Some species have been investigated for their potential as biocontrol agents in integrated pest management. Zelus is also known for a sticky trap predation strategy. Sticky resin produced from a leg gland is smeared on hairs to aid in prey capture. This is somewhat analogous to the carnivorous plant sundew.

Zelos - An alternate spelling of Zelus of Greek mythology

Zelos, the main antagonist from Konami's side-shooter; Salamander (video game)

Earthly Strange Star, Frog Zelos - Minor? Antagonist of Saint Seiya.

Zelos the SONG -
VIXX 2016 CONCEPTION, VIXX's year-long project is themed around the gods that appear in Greek mythology and their 5th single album concept is based upon Zelos; the Greek God of Jealousy and Rivalry.

-Courtesy of Wikipedia

Completely trustworthy.

(P.S. Blame Homestuck for this research)

Also, I just noticed something crazy.

Jealous

Zelus

Zelos.

They literally sound so similiar I think the europeans ripped it off of the Greek word, made minor changes, and said "Yep, completely original"

>>122728
There’s also Zealous: having or showing zeal.

>>122728
"Zealous" is straight from Greek; "jealous" is via Latin and French. This kind of thing happens a lot in English.

so are there gonna be updates at all?
just curious.

>>126470
They'll probably be sporadic for the foreseeable future since Raptie's got a lot of other stuff on her plate right now. As far as I know she's working on her own webcomic, doing coloring and shading for Out of Placers as well as commission work. That doesn't leave much time for quests, I figure.