Kronos Character Profile Kaktus 2015/06/27(Sat)10:52 No. 92357 ID: 65a774
File 143542754356.png - (15.34KB , 200x350 , Kronos.png )

Prince Kronos Helios Mediean the Second.

Species / sex: Male Vark.
Age: 23
“Class”: Rogue.

Strengths:
Agile+
Light+
Intelligent+
Weaknesses:
Impulsive-
Aggressive-
*Sakkilianphobia: You are afraid of the Sakkilian species.
Mastered Skills:
Gunplay+
Speech Craft+

Proficient skills:
Bluffing+ (Speech Craft bonus)
Athletics+ (Light bonus)
Sleight of hand+ (Agile bonus)
Games+ (Intelligence bonus)

Horrid at:
Cooking-

so how many races are in the world here and can you give us a brief description of them?

Lord Kaktus has some drawing skills! Couldn't honestly tell it was you or someone using Sakkil as a tribute.

Very nice though.

I'm not usually one for political intrigue but out of loyalty I'll see how this goes.

>I'm not usually one for political intrigue but out of loyalty I'll see how this goes.
Well, knowing the way I usually write these kinds of things the story will spiral completely out of control and into madness by the second thread. Also, I didn’t know I had a following that was that loyal, which is nice.

>Lord Kaktus has some drawing skills!
Now that’s debatable…
>Very nice though.
Thank you. Honestly, I’m quite surprised it came out this well myself. Apparently, I had more drawing experience then I thought.
>Couldn't honestly tell it was you or someone using Sakkil as a tribute.
And here I thought people would recognize my style of writing and my overdependence on icons for everything. Though, there have been a lot of new quests popping up now that it’s summer…

>So how many races are in the world here and can you give us a brief description of them?
Quick rundown of the species, though I still lack some specifics:

Human – Boring old apes as always.

Varks – Birds. Fun fact: They exist solely because of my complete inaptitude at drawing human faces, thus why they are pretty much humans with peep faces. (So yes, the main character was originally human.)

Sakkilians – Big lizard things.

Hiver – Giant mantises.

Uredo – Plant people.

Cibic – parasite inhabiting weird jelly bodies.

Serpens – Weird three gendered snakes things with eight eyes and stuff…

Elementals – Spirits whose bodies are made out of one of the five elements. That is to say either fire, water, air, earth or the illusive pizza elemental.

So basically, the same as my pixel quests (>>87276) without the sci-fi + peeps. (And elementals instead of SAIs.)

Pretty sure some of us who follow your quests have been around since the first Pixel Adventure.

Though I'm surprised if your unable to draw human faces that you made the Adviser/Servant one.

As for dependence on icon's I've noticed several who do so, but as a whole it's why I started posting on it because as said I couldn't tell if it was a tribute to your style or if it was you.

Part of me wants to say something snarky like why mess around with sprites if you're this capable at drawing but at the same time, *whistles*
Pretty good art, and last I checked you capable of handling mystery/intrigue fairly well alongside some interesting interactions based on the meta of questing.

>Pretty sure some of us who follow your quests have been around since the first Pixel Adventure.
I think I’ve said it before, but I do recognize several of you from back then.
>Though I'm surprised if you’re unable to draw human faces that you made the Adviser/Servant one.
I needed at least one character that I could practice on… and there’s a reason why we’ve only seen him in profile so far.

>Part of me wants to say something snarky like why mess around with sprites if you're this capable at drawing but at the same time…
Mostly because I shouldn’t draw very well when I started doing quests, which means I started using sprites instead.
>Pretty good art, and last I checked you capable of handling mystery/intrigue fairly well alongside some interesting interactions based on the meta of questing.
Thanks… and I do hope this doesn’t crash your expectations of me.

Wasn't the first section of Pixel Adventure hand-drawn before the city teleport?

so quick question

How different are the races in this quest compared to your pixel ones? I mean in this quest you have stated that the Sakkilians actually have claws and crap this time around while in your pixel quest they pretty much seem to be humans but with a tail, scales, and a slightly better tolerance to heat and a slightly worse one to the cold. And if they are actually different then there pixelated counterparts do any other of the races have racial traits if you will.

>Wasn't the first section of Pixel Adventure hand-drawn before the city teleport?
No, it was still pixel based, even though it was a weird, original pixel style. I mean, the quest is called PIXEL adventure for a reason… namely that I suck at names- I mean, it was done with pixel art.

>How different are the races in this quest compared to your pixel ones? I mean in this quest you have stated that the Sakkilians actually have claws and crap this time around while in your pixel quest they pretty much seem to be humans but with a tail and scales.
There will be some smaller changes for sure, but I don’t know exactly all the details yet myself. I do generally change things around while writing.
>And if they are actually different then there pixelated counterparts do any other of the races have racial traits if you will.
The one thing I know will change is height differences, as I’m no longer as restricted by the art itself. That’s why Briannah is so big (though she’s big even for female sakkilian standard) for example. Of course, there will also be a lot of changes when they are converted from sci-fi to fantasy, like SAIs being made out of elemental magic instead of steel and Serpens being all about MAGIC! Instead of SCIENCE! (Technically it’s MAGIC SCIENCE! but eh…). So, short answer, there will be differences but I don’t know exactly what yet.

Making chairs from the bones of your enemies gives me a strong Dwarf Fortress vibe. Brings back memories of making +Goblin Bone Bolts+ (with which to shoot more goblins).

>>92652
Both uses of enemy corpses trike me as interesting in a utilitarian, "waste not want not" kind of way.

>New icon is behaving strangely, can’t figure out why.
It's 'cause you uploaded a 62 by 62 icon and it's being scaled up to 64 by 64, thus making it look all jaggy and crap. If you repeatedly press the expand image link for it in the icon thread you'll see the difference.

If you can still delete the icon image post I think you can replace it with a proper size image with the same file name and it should automatically replace the icons in the quest. But if that doesn't work you can ask a mod to swap out the image file.

>>92711
Just did some testing on the test and icon boards and I can confirm that you can safely replace all the incorrect icons in the quest. Simply delete the incorrect icon post and upload the correct sized one with the same file name and all the icons will automatically be replaced with the right one.

>It's 'cause you uploaded a 62 by 62 icon and it's being scaled up to 64 by 64.
I originally uploaded it scaled as 64 x 64 and it had the same problem.
>If you can still delete the icon image post I think you can replace it with a proper size image with the same file name and it should automatically replace the icons in the quest.
Replaced it with the correct file, but still weird looking.

>>92714
Tried uploading the 64 x 64 32 bit icon image as the OP post in a test thread and the thumbnail for it came out looking as crap as the icon image. Looks like the thumbnail generator is screwing up somehow in converting from 32 bit PNG to 8 bit PNG. But it's strange it's only happening with this particular image and not the six previous ones...

Okay, I think I have something. I saved the 32 bit icon image for Cain, uploaded it to a test thread and the thumbnail generated for it turns out as janky as the Sbkta icon. Did the same test with the Briannah icon with the same results. So it appears the thumbnail generator may have broken sometime between when you uploaded the Briannah icon and the Sbkta icon.

Did more testing with other PNGs and it looks like it's just 64 x 64 32 bit PNGs who's thumbnails are generating wrong, which is bizarre. Also tested with a conversion of the 64 x 64 32 bit Sbkta icon to a JPG and its thumbnail generated correctly. So as a workaround for now you can upload a JPG version of the icon instead of a PNG and it ought to work.

I'll contact Dylan to try and figure out why the thumbnail generator is now screwing up on only this specific size and type of PNG file.

>>92717
Ah, I found a even better workaround. Used Paint.NET to convert your original 64 x 64 32 bit PNG icon image for Sbkta to a high quality JPG, then converted that back into a 32 bit PNG. Uploaded that PNG and the thumbnail turned out A-OK! So it's something in your original PNG image that the thumbnail generator is now choking on. No idea what that is or why now, but doing the conversion hokey-pokey makes it work.

>Ah, I found a even better workaround. Used Paint.NET to convert your original 64 x 64 32 bit PNG icon image for Sbkta to a high quality JPG, then converted that back into a 32 bit PNG.
Fixed it by opening the file in Paint and just saving it again, which worked for some reason.

so I have a question involving Kronos, since he has skills in both Agile and Light (let's just say it's a skill for now) does that mean he's good at free running/parkour/whatever you call it? Just asking now so I don't waste time suggest something that Kronos might not even be able to do in the quest.

>So I have a question involving Kronos, since he has skills in both Agile and Light (let's just say it's a skill for now) does that mean he's good at free running/parkour/whatever you call it?
While he’s not used of doing parkour in general, he is a very good climber / jumper, so he has no problem getting up on things people should be able to get too.

I had entirely forgotten how Hiver/mantid hands worked until I got to see the librarians.

>>92729
Dylan looked into it and it turns out he messed up a setting in the thumbnail generator. He wanted to force it to output 32 bit PNG but had mis-set it to 24 bit. It should be fixed now.

Idea: We only get to use Kronos' positive attributes if we've also been using his negative ones. Like, using his negatives gives us a credit or credits we can use to activate a positive attribute.

This might result in us hoarding points and thus him using his positive attributes even less than he does now... or it could keep that gameplay mechanic ever-present and fun. I don't see any reason to hoard points myself since intelligence and speechcraft are things we can usually cover for on our own.

>>92852

It just seems to happen when it should happen really, I don't know why we would need to overcomplicate it.

so what's the deal with Briannah's Gender?
I'm really bad at understanding innuendo and such

it's important I know this for reasons . . .

>Dylan looked into it and it turns out he messed up a setting in the thumbnail generator. It should be fixed now.
Ah, good. Thanks for the help.

>I had entirely forgotten how Hiver/mantid hands worked until I got to see the librarians.
Those things were hell to draw. I’m lucky there aren’t a lot of mantises running around in this quest.
>Idea: We only get to use Kronos' positive attributes if we've also been using his negative ones.
That just sound overly complicated. He’ll use his attributes when it’s in character… in theory, at least. I’m still struggling a bit to get into his character properly, but I think I’m starting to get him now.

>so what's the deal with Briannah's Gender?
She’s female. That’s the end of that. The whole weird gender identity was just something someone suggested and I ran with it as a red herring (Probably because I clearly have fetish for those things and have overused it in my previous quests…).
>it's important I know this for reasons . . .
Clearly, the only way to be sure these reasons come out proper is to make one reason for each gender… clearly… *cough*…

some of those Regicide pieces looked like gnolls, do we have the pleasure of having big hyena people in this quest?

>(Probably because I clearly have fetish for those things and have overused it in my previous quests…).

And then it turns out she really has one thanks to True World Illusion and then we have to settle three dreams before discovering otherwise. J/K I kid I kid.

>Clearly, the only way to be sure these reasons come out proper is to make one reason for each gender… clearly… *cough*…
there was only going to be a reason for one gender, if concerns had been confirmed there'd be no reason at all


Sakkil ladies don't have tits right?

>Some of those Regicide pieces looked like gnolls, do we have the pleasure of having big hyena people in this quest?
Sadly, no. There are already enough species as it is migrating from my other quests… and I’m pretty sure I can’t draw dog faces at all.

>And then it turns out she really has one thanks to True World Illusion and then we have to settle three dreams before discovering otherwise.
Dammit! Now I have to rewrite the whole plot again... am I really that predicable? Luckily, you’ve yet spoilered the fact that Kronos is actually a dream, Briannah is already dead and the big, city destroying monster is actually Kronos real father.

>Sakkil ladies don't have tits right?
They are as flat as a board.

>>92900
>They are as flat as a board.
But do get a substantial species bonus towards hips, ass and thighs. ...Hm. That makes me wonder if the Sakkilian guys get a bit of that bonus as well. Like the male Sakkilans have an average hip to shoulder ratio closer to that of female humans than to male humans.

I also wonder why you choose to put boobs on the Vark gals, Kaktus. Didn't have a better way to differentiate them that wouldn't be harder to draw? Or is it 'cause you're working in monochrome and the common diff for bird folk that don't have breasts is the males get colorful plumage and the females dull?

And congrats on your first piece of fanart for the quest. (>>/questdis/92903) Not surprised at all it's of Briannah in the nude, though she doesn't look quite buff enough.

>>92905
He did mention that Varks were created because he couldn't exactly draw human faces well, so they are basically humanesque moreso then any other race.

>I also wonder why you choose to put boobs on the Vark gals, Kaktus.
As the above poster said, they are basically humans with bird heads, mostly so I can get some training done on normal human bodies (Including the BOOBS part).
>But do get a substantial species bonus towards hips, ass and thighs.
They have a +3 to buttocks as a base stat, which is important in the later dungeons.
>...Hm. That makes me wonder if the Sakkilian guys get a bit of that bonus as well. Like the male Sakkilans have an average hip to shoulder ratio closer to that of female humans than to male humans.
Clearly, this is evolution at work. Thanks to the lacks of proper mammary they’ve instead evolved prettier posteriors to compete for mates, making both genders butts more shapely, clearly… *cough* at it has absolutely nothing to do with my own preferences… at all… *cough*…

>Congrats on your first piece of fanart for the quest.
I have to admit, I almost jumped with giddiness when LonelyWorld alluded to “important reasons”. He’s always done fine art, that chap.
>Not surprised at all it's of Briannah in the nude, though she doesn't look quite buff enough.
I’d probably chalk it up to the lack of any real reference picture, but he did get most of the details that have been shown in the quest proper right, which is impressive. Her only having two fingers on one hand, the left side being scared, the correct limbs missing etc. etc. the only things missing are things we haven’t seen in the quest yet, so I’m very happy how it came out. (Now I just need to find the time / the skill to draw some fan art of his stuff… which might take a while…)

Starting to think the Vark's are half chocobo considering it's been twice now he's Varked under stress. (hehe)

> time / the skill to draw some fan art of his stuff… which might take a while…

when it comes to fanart, I feel effort is more important then skill.
and I do love fanart so it is always welcome!

You know I didn't even notice this quest was by Kaktus until like a hour ago, but I really should have seeing as it has lizards with tits and giant mantis people. Also whats this crap about “Let’s learn how to freaking draw” quest. Our drawing skills are superb.

>>93108
"Lizards with tits?" Where'd you see lizards with tits in this quest? 'Cause I haven't seen any... Though, the way the curve of Briannah's chest was drawn in the side view at the feast made it look rather like she had small boobs more than pecs. But that's just a error from Kaktus learning to art.

>I really should have seeing as it has lizards with tits and giant mantis people.
Lizard with tits? But none of my quest has lizards with tits!
>Also whats this crap about “Let’s learn how to freaking draw” quest. Your drawing skills are superb.
As long as I draw the character waist up from only two different directions, sure…
>Though, the way the curve of Briannah's chest was drawn in the side view at the feast made it look rather like she had small boobs more than pecs. But that's just aa error from Kaktus learning to art.
…well, now I can’t unsee that either. Geez, I really need to learn how to art faster!

Also, it saddens me that no one seems to have gotten the reference to this really obscure old snes game cleverly hidden in one of the imaged in the last update that- actually, I can see now why people missed it.

>Lizard with tits? But none of my quest has lizards with tits!

So what about Boob lizard... Er I mean, Aelia.

>>93116
Oh, what SNES game was it?

>>93117
She wasn't born- or rather, hatched, with 'em. She had 'em bio-modded in later.

Kronos 2015/07/16(Thu)08:35 No. 93133 ID: 65a774
File 143706094520.jpg - (264.77KB , 640x560 , flashback title screen.jpg )

>So what about Boob lizard... Er I mean, Aelia.
Oh, right, I forgot that she got those. I usually just remember her as lizard beard lady.
>Oh, what SNES game was it?
Old game called Flashback. Specifically, the title screen. You might notice the similarities between it and the stance Kronos had last time we saw him.

>http://tgchan.org/kusaba/quest/#656267

Okay I'm not sure if it's a glitch that the gif only plays once or purposeful but that's kind of clever in a spooky way.
Kaktus you have a certain affinity with horror...

>>93134
I don't know what image editing program was used, but with GIMP, once you export an image as a GIF you can set the frame timers, as well as tell it whether or not loop forever. I tried to figure out if it mentions anywhere if it's set to loop or not, but I cannot.
Of note, however, that final frame is only set to stay for 8.4 seconds, which is a bit of an unusual timer for a frame that will stay there forever. If I wanted it to stay on that last frame, I would just give it the same timer as everything else.

>Okay I'm not sure if it's a glitch that the gif only plays once or purposeful but that's kind of clever in a spooky way.
It was on purpose.
>Of note, however, that final frame is only set to stay for 8.4 seconds, which is a bit of an unusual timer for a frame that will stay there forever. If I wanted it to stay on that last frame, I would just give it the same timer as everything else.
That’s because I didn’t know you should actually make it unloopable before I started exporting it to gif format, thus originally it delved on the last frame (Actually, it just a bunch of frames that nothing happens…) to make sure it didn’t loop to fast in the end.
>Kaktus you have a certain affinity with horror...
Why, thank you. I do try to make thing SPOOKY at times.

You know, when Xuv was first introduced I was thinking of posting in here going "This new love interest is so kawaii" but then I didn't

and now this

>>93168
+1. Brothel God ending is our new goal.

Just how many of the Counsel are female, since Kronos is heterosexual?

>You know, when Xuv was first introduced I was thinking of posting in here going "This new love interest is so kawaii" but then I didn't… and now this.
Xuv is best waifu.
>Brothel God ending is our new goal.
I think you mean harem god ending, but either way it’s a worthy goal.
>Just how many of the Counsel are female, since Kronos is heterosexual?
Half of them are female. Life, death and earth are females, while fire, water and wind are male. Clearly, Kronos needs to learn how to appreciate dick if that harem idea of yours is going to work out.

I noticed that Kronos' feather coloration and pattern in the fan service pic is rather similar to that of RML's bird girl Robin. I figure this is just a nice coincidence and wanted to point it out. I also noticed that Kronos' pose conveniently hid his hands and feet. Drawing them is shaping up to be a pain in the ass, isn't it?

>I noticed that Kronos' feather coloration and pattern in the fan service pic is rather similar to that of RML's bird girl Robin. I figure this is just a nice coincidence and wanted to point it out.
I’m pretty sure both characters are based on blue jays, so there’s that…
>I also noticed that Kronos' pose conveniently hid his hands and feet. Drawing them is shaping up to be a pain in the ass, isn't it?
I think I speak for most artist when I say that hands / feet are the work of the devil, evil government and / or evil aliens!

>>93282
The hand itself, not so much, but the fifth finger (The Pinkie) totally is. There are plenty of artists who do fine when they just kill the pinkie.

>>93282
does Kronos have human like feet or are they more like a bird's talon?

>The hand itself, not so much, but the fifth finger (The Pinkie) totally is. There are plenty of artists who do fine when they just kill the pinkie.
Yet I have a problem with Briannahs grotesque four digit hands…
>does Kronos have human like feet or are they more like a bird's talon?
At the moment, Kronos feet are in a Schrödinger state. He’s supposed to have bird like feet, but as I don’t know if I can actually draw bird feet at all that might change…

>>93348
Draw an actual burd bird and see.

>>93348
DO IT YOU NERD

>and now Uredo
God dammit Kaktus you fucking one trick pony this is great i cant wait to see the snake people.

>DO IT YOU NERD
HAPPY NOW, DORK?
>Draw an actual burd bird and see.
But I can’t draw burd birds because peeps are hard to burd. (Also, I surprised myself with those feet, they look nice…)

>>93369
YES

>>93369
Can varks use there feet to grab things? I mean if it's basically a bird's foot it should be able to grip things.

I think this is the first of your quests you've had the dubious honor of Kome suggesting in since he/she/it showed up here, Kaktus. Here's hoping some good stuff can be dredged up from the crazy.

>>93379
Kome's crazy? Things have been dredged up from my crazy, and my crazy's even worse. Speaking of which:
>>/quest/657635
>...That's a bloody good point.
This lead me to thinking.
>That you will find the mighty dragon, the one unbound by fate itself, tame him and give him a highborn wife who will bear the next Phoenix King!
>[Ker’lacka means] Big reptile creatures, they are… flying around… yes… like seagulls!
>You think you’re a bird made out of fire? Don’t be silly, Helios, you’re not a fire bird!
>[Krotos] would unite the highborn with the Ker’lacka and then he would find the dragon, find him a wife, make them sire a son and make him a god!
>"…so he seduced you for information?" "…t-that’s… part of it, yes."
...Helios knew about it all, and was sending Krotos to fulfill the prophecy?
>Five of them, actually, and a lot of other high ranking officers. Yah pretty much took out most of our command in that attack… and a lot of other important things, too. ‘e knew where to strike us and when we were as weakest.
But then, Krotos didn't know the full prophecy (Perhaps Helios didn't, either, then, since it was through Xuv that the whole story was gained, not Garden), and something convinced him that killing the generals was how to solve it.
>I met… someone I didn’t expect. I hesitated for just a moment and I paid with these scars for it. Betrayal does ‘ave a knack of catching yah unaware, doesn’t it?
>I lost my left hand and eye to [Krotos's] gun… and ‘is sword took my leg and gave me a nasty scar across my stomach. ‘e put me in a coma for three moths... they say it’s a miracle that I survived… or that I was simply too stubborn to die.
Krotos likely didn't seduce Briannah "Just for information," but actually loved her. Their love would have likely lead to treatices being formed without the death of the generals, but finding "The solution" to the prophecy blinded Krotos for a time. Briannah was surprised to see Krotos there, but he was probably caught by surprise as well. He did not wish to kill her, but could not just leave her be.

The problem, of course, lies in how he could have ensured she lived. Such magics were likely very difficult to get. Of course, if it was Illasia who gave him the prophecy's answer, she could have also lent him some power to help break the prophecy even more--but did not expect him to give it up for her.

>>93417
I don't know why you think they knew about the prophecy. Xuv made it pretty clear she hadn't told anyone about the prophecy yet.

>>93417
>...Helios knew about it all, and was sending Krotos to fulfill the prophecy?
I highly HIGHLY doubt that. I don't think anybody other then the gods knew about it. I mean it was fated to happen so they were going to do it anyways, it's just that the The life god fucked with things and changed it.

>something convinced him that killing the generals was how to solve it.
The fact that killing 5 high ranking generals would completely disorganize the Sakkilian army and probably cause it to collapse? Although I did find the number odd. 5 generals, 5 gods, 6 if you count Krotos himself. probably nothing but it did stand out to me

>Krotos likely didn't seduce Briannah "Just for information," but actually loved her. Their love would have likely lead to treatices being formed without the death of the generals, but finding "The solution" to the prophecy blinded Krotos for a time. Briannah was surprised to see Krotos there, but he was probably caught by surprise as well. He did not wish to kill her, but could not just leave her be.
that's a lot of assuming on something we don't even have a clear picture on yet but I will agree something more was going on between them then what Briannah is saying. Because I'm sure she'd be more pissed then sad whenever she remembers him. That and the fact that she's glad to see Kronos resembles his brother so much.

>The problem, of course, lies in how he could have ensured she lived.
My theory is that either Illasia or Xuv cut her a deal that saved her life. Both goddesses deal with life and death in some way so it would be in there realms of expertise to save her. I mean Briannah is looking for something, it's why she came to the Vark's castle. It has information that she can't get back home. I doubt Xuv was the one to help her though mostly because those artificial limbs with the symbol of life on them just nudges me away from the idea that Xuv helped her... plus Xuv had seemed to have no idea what a sakkilian even was when we talked to her. But with Illasia I don't understand why she'd have briannah look for information on Vark army logistics unless Briannah is trying to figure something out for herself.

>>93418
Xuv didn't tell anybody, which is why Krotos could have been decieved. The Prophecy that anybody else knew was only a tiny piece of it. Garden implied (Assuming he was feigning senility) that Helios had brought it up. Garden knew about the webs of fate and mentioned webs and mazes when asked about the Earth Goddess.
>But with Illasia I don't understand why she'd have briannah look for information on Vark army logistics unless Briannah is trying to figure something out for herself.
If Illasia directly cut a deal with Briannah, it means she was looking for any sign of Xuv, meaning Kronos should avoid mentioning the crypt, or showing the book.

>>93420
>I doubt Xuv was the one to help her though mostly because those artificial limbs with the symbol of life on them just nudges me away from the idea that Xuv helped her...
Um... Are you thinking that Briannah's magically animated prostheses could only be artifacts created by a god? 'Cause they could be created by mortal hands, it would just be very expensive, as Kronos said in the post here >>/quest/653432. So it's much more likely the Zadian Empress, Briannah's mother, paid the hefty sum to have those prostheses made.

>>93417
>>93424
And why are you chasing theories based on the names the Garden was using when it kept getting them mixed up? We can't tell if it was intentionally using a wrong name or just couldn't keep them straight.

>>93435
>Um... Are you thinking that Briannah's magically animated prostheses could only be artifacts created by a god?
no, just saying having the life symbol of magic doesn't seem to fit the profile of someone who works with the goddess of death. Like having a guy covered in tattoos who looks like a thug being a doctor. While it's easily possible most people would still find it hard to believe without proof.

>>93436
But if the only option for controlling the magically animated prostheses is engraving them with bio runes, a variant of life runes, then you don't really have a choice if you don't like them on you. But that aside, I'd figure a undercover agent of Xuv would avoid sticking her symbol on themselves. And that having runes or symbols that are associated with Illasia on would make for better cover.

>>93439
But Kronos was the first person Xuv spoke to in all these years she's been trapped in the inverted tower, so it couldn't have been her doing.
>>93435
I'm chasing wild goose theories because I'm crazy. It's my brand of Toko Logic.

>Can varks use their feet to grab things?
While they are better grabbers then humans, they aren’t that proficient in it. So yes, they can grab thing with their burd feet.
>I think this is the first of your quests you've had the dubious honor of Kome suggesting in since he/she/it showed up here, Kaktus. Here's hoping some good stuff can be dredged up from the crazy.
I’m pretty sure he isn’t the first eccentric person I’ve had in the quest and he won’t be the last.

>Those artificial limbs with the symbol of life connects her to Illasia.
Actually, that symbol is the rune of life which is used in all life magic. Illasia is just using it because she is pretty much made out of life magic. There are more runes then just the six runes used by the counsel of six, but most of them are a bit rarer than them.
>God dammit Kaktus you fucking one trick pony this is great I can’t wait to see the snake people.
Hey, I got an interesting group of species already created so I might as well use them.

I just love Kronos adorable little "pout" face when it's frontal viewing.

I have this feeling that Kaktus was expecting us to jump on the opportunity to crack open the mysterious book rather then going to the Regicide club meeting. The setup was there before with the tools and the sure privacy, and now with Kronos being the odd man out at the meeting. Now I wish I hadn't gotten paranoid about the book and went with my original suggestion in my post.

>I have this feeling that Kaktus was expecting us to jump on the opportunity to crack open the mysterious book rather than going to the Regicide club meeting.
Actually, I generally try to leave several options and actions to take after every update, so that the whole quest doesn’t get too railroaded. Going to the meeting, even though Kronos can’t play himself, does open up several other opportunities, even if some of them aren’t directly apparent. So, the action I actually expected you to follow the most was to go to the meeting, with cracking open the book a close second.
>I just love Kronos adorable little "pout" face when it's frontal viewing.
He does love to pout, doesn’t he?

>>93637
Right, I should have figured as much since I've followed and suggested in your quests for so long. By now I really ought to know better.

>>93637
Several options, like checking on the head librarian to figure out what's got him so busied?

>>93648
Yeah, that's one option we could have taken. I guess I got tunnel vision or something and didn't think about that kind of option.

Why the heck did all five suggesters after update >>/quest/661478 suggest to pray to the fire god Ifocen? As far as I can remember we weren't told anything about him that would indicate he could either help us figure things out or protect Kronos or Briannah. I can't even remember anything that implied he could help us. In fact, we knew very little about Ifocen beyond him being a god of fire.

As it is, I feel that praying to Ifocen wasn't the best choice since it just netted us more questions and what may be the answer to a question we don't know yet, but no answers to our outstanding questions. And based on Kronos' nosebleed, it looks like we won't be able to pray again anytime soon 'cause he won't be able to take another vision like he just had without potentially serious repercussions.

I think it would have been more beneficial to pray to Gaisia, the earth goddess, since it was indicated here >>/quest/657835 that fate was once her domain. To quote Kronos' thought: "According to the current lore, Illasia is the master of fate… but you did read in those older works that it was originally the goddess of earth who had fate as her domain." So a vision from her may have revealed a bit more on the threads of fate that lead through Kronos, or possibly the ones that weave through the gods themselves.

>>93965
I originally brought up praying to Ifocen in >>/quest/660342 because all of these "Holy visions" were of undead things, and it was heavily emphasized that it was through Holy Fire that corpses were burned to prevent undeath.
Gaisia is the goddess of Fate, yes, but that alone isn't reason enough. If we start praying to her for fate-ful protection, Illasia could learn that Kronos did, in fact, learn all about the "Fate" set aside for him, and we don't want that.

>>93967
Okay, fine. Considering how little we know, that's a good enough reason. Though, if I remember correctly Kronos did say that any means that destroy an undead's chest would "kill" it, since that's where the magic coalesces. So a shot from an ice pistol would work as well as burning it whole. And IIRC it's not just fire that prevents the dead rising, that's just what is used in Risavia. Other cultures have their own ways that may not be fire.

I'm just slightly annoyed that all the suggesters went for the first non-obviously-stupid option of Ifocen and didn't even think of trying another. There were the gods of air and water as well as earth, but everybody chose Ifocen.

And I should point out that if Illasia can sense Krotos' praying to the elemental gods or even eavesdrop in on them that she's going to be pissed that he didn't pray to her first. And if none of these prayers play out with some protection from her then things are not going to go well.

>>93969
According to Xuv, Illasia put the other four gods to sleep, and is acting in their place. She would "Sense" the prayer because she would recieve it, but praying to a god who's element is used in that country to prevent the rise of undead wouldn't give away that he has any distrust for Illasia--In fact, there's really no reason whatsoever to pray to the Goddess of Life. What good will Life do against Living dead? Make them even livlier? That sounds horrible.

Something just hit me as weird about that dream.
It was the goddess of Life&Light...But she was using Undead as tools.
Shouldn't that be Xuv's domain? I feel the goddess of light REALLY oughta use light-specific powers instead of using stolen property.

>>93972
Undead are explained as corpses with too much Life energy in them. So it turns out the Life god governs undead. It actually makes sense when you take into account Life includes the creation of new life, which undead qualify as.

The Death god actually governs the afterlife, and the endings of things. It does not involve undead, as that is a perversion of true death.

>>93973
That also explains how she cursed Xuv with hideous undeath, if the goddess of Life is secretly also the goddess of Necromancy.

>>93973
>>93975
It's a nice explanation, but based on what we know from in-quest I don't think we call that that's the way necromancy works in the quest world quite yet. To know for sure we'd need to either get an actual necromancer to explain how their magic works or a tome on the basics of necromancy, and I don't see a way we can pull either of those off. ...Actually, maybe we could ask Tim. He might know just the basic theory of necromancy or what causes "wild" undead to rise.

Also, we shouldn't take at face value anything in the visions or dreams Kronos has. For all we know the skeletal hands were an illusion made by Illasia, or the whole thing was cooked up by Xuv to scare Kronos away from Illasia, or it really was a hallucination, or who the fuck knows what else, or some combination of these.

>>93977
>Also, we shouldn't take at face value anything in the visions or dreams Kronos has.
This is the second reason to avoid both of them. We don't know for sure if it's either of them, maybe Illasia hasn't been doing anything and doesn't realize anything's gone wrong. Praying to Xuv might not alert Illasia, but if she's decieving Kronos, praying to her would just be playing right into her hands.

Goddammit, I don't like this update 'cause I don't know if it's Kaktus is throwing us a second chance to pray to Xuv and not fuck up everything, or if it's supposed to show that Xuv is manipulating Tim and we have to stop him, or if it's something else entirely that I missed. It's making be feel a rising sense of anxiety and dread that I made the wrong choice in suggesting to stop Time and I hate that feeling. It makes me reluctant to post at all as well as dread what the next update will contain and I don't like that.

>>94007
Getting a chance to pray to Xuv in private will probably be a good idea, but not while Tim is drunk. For now, let's learn about the proper rituals for Ifocen and Gaisia and determine how we can perform a ritual prayer to Xuv personally, rather than rely on a drunkard who might botch it.

>>94007
I think he's drunk AND being influenced by the fire god. Courage, right?

That fortune reading was a rather obvious device to get the quest back on track, but a necessary one since our paranoid over-thinking probably would have eventually sent the quest careening into the ditch. Still, it feels a little bad that our choices meant such a device had to be resorted to.

Now, on a different subject: How tall are Kronos and Briannah? Kronos looks to be roughly about the same height as Cain, so average height for a human male? And Briannah looks about a head and a half to two heads taller than Kronos depending on the image, so I estimate Kronos is 180 cm tall and Briannah is 216 to 228 cm.

6 of coins on death, aka help from death, help from xuv.

>How tall are Kronos and Briannah?
Kronos is somewhere between 1,75 to 1,80 while Briannah is 2m+.
>I estimate Kronos is 180 cm tall and Briannah is 216 to 228 cm.
That sounds about correct. I have no exact numbers, but they should be somewhere near those numbers.

>That fortune reading was a rather obvious device to get the quest back on track, but a necessary one since our paranoid over-thinking probably would have eventually sent the quest careening into the ditch.
Personally, I think it’s kind of funny that nearly everyone is inclined to believe a few cards laid on a table like this. If anything, I thought this would actually just be more fuel to the paranoia, as it’s quite obvious that something is going on.

>>94085
>Personally, I think it’s kind of funny that nearly everyone is inclined to believe a few cards laid on a table like this. If anything, I thought this would actually just be more fuel to the paranoia, as it’s quite obvious that something is going on.

I think it's partly metagaming based around the fact that you even wrote it and that Xuv's prayer ritual is known and Illasia's hasn't been translated yet, along with Xuv having already been introduced so we're more inclined to go to her as well as the base urge to take action rather then sit about. But it's mostly 'cause we're sorely lacking in info to make a decision and are flailing about for any sign of a direction to take before Kronos goes to sleep and presumably his nightmares get Briannah. We have no even half-decent sources of info nor any idea where to find one in the time we have. We could have prayed to the other three elemental gods but our paranoid choices looks to have shut that route off for today. So we're left with the apparent options of either praying to Xuv or metagaming by letting the clock run out and betting that you won't take Briannah out; That the threat was a bluff, or that we'll get a single night grace period, or that if it does come down that it won't cause irrevocable harm to her by the time tomorrow comes.

>Personally, I think it’s kind of funny that nearly everyone is inclined to believe a few cards laid on a table like this.
When is the last time fortune telling in fiction has not been accurate? Misleading or misinterpreted sure, but I don't think I have ever seen a story feature a prophesy or such that was simply a complete guess or lie. Someone really should do that at some point though...

>>94087
>Misleading or misinterpreted sure, but I don't think I have ever seen a story feature a prophesy or such that was simply a complete guess or lie. Someone really should do that at some point though...
For all we know the lie option is what's happening in this quest, by the cards being manipulated by Xuv into fitting the story she has laid out and what Kronos has been told and experienced elsewhere. And, once again, we have no means to tell if that's it or not. It's frustrating.

eh, I'm mostly going with following the cards as Kronos is impulsive and I have been trying to keep that in mind when making suggestions. taking the cards at face value just seems like an impulsive thing to do.

I think the suggesters suggesting that Kronos clean up then bring Briannah in on the prayer ritual afterwards either forgot or didn't know in the first place that Briannah was planning to have a meeting with a few other Sakkilian officers at nine 'o clock and Kronos is going to tag along to. It's only mentioned on one line in the previous thread here >>/questarch/659856 so it'd be easy to overlook.

I thought it was a dinner. Also didn't we just have dinner? I'm confused.

>>94169
Yes, Kronos did have dinner with Briannah earlier this evening. It was right after Kronos showered to clean the stink bomb liquid off and right before he met with Tim and Cain about the book of prayer rituals. And Kronos is planning to have a romantic dinner with Briannah tomorrow, so perhaps you misremembered and thought it would be happening later this evening.

>>94169
pretty sure the 9 o'clock thing is the military meeting that Briannah is taking us to so we can learn just how fucked both their nations are military wise.

...well they're sleeping in the same room tonight so they can still do the ritual together before bed.

hope Kaktus is ok

>>94301
There's usually a lull in updates around when school starts, which is now.

>>94301
No he died and assended (descended?) to daemonhood!
All Hail KAKTAR Our New Dark God!

>All Hail KAKTAR Our New Dark God!
I LIVE AGAIN! ALL SHALL BOW DOWN TO MY GREATNESS! LOVE ME AND DISPAIR, MORTALS, AS I, DEMON LORD OF ALL CACTI, WILL MAKE THE VERY SKIES RAIN NEEDLES UPON THEE!!

>hope Kaktus is ok.
But seriously, I’m fine. I was just cursed by an old, mad hag living in swamp. She cursed me with the dreadful curse of “University starting again, do your freaking studying!”, but I think I’m recovering from it.

>University starting, study
What is this madness? Studying is for when it's ending, 'cause then you gotta focus on the finals.

I have a suspicion that the major that Major Qelba keeps cutting off is the Dragon and once he (or she) is introduced Kronos will recognize them as such since he's the Phoenix. I'm guessing that's being put off to keep the flow of the quest going and not put too much into one update.

Kaktus, could you clarify the positions of the nations bordering Risavia and the Empire? Just to nail them down so we and you don't get them mixed up again.

Kronos 2015/08/30(Sun)10:15 No. 94547 ID: 65a774
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>What is this madness? Studying is for when it's ending, 'cause then you gotta focus on the finals.
We don’t have finals at all here, instead having test at the end of each course, which are mostly about two moths long. Of course, what I needed to do was finishing some labs I hadn’t passed last year, as they generally have one last extra hand in date at the end of summer before the new period starts.
>Kaktus, could you clarify the positions of the nations bordering Risavia and the Empire?
Badly made map, go!
Also, Copy paste from my word document, go!
Vark – Risavia Kingdom
Sakkilian –Zadian Empire
Hiver – Kr’skt’bpt Dynasty
Human – Lorentia Kingdom
Serpents – Sheije isles
Sea - The Serene

>>94547
so with Risavia and Zadian being so close to the sea does that mean they both have a navy?

>>94554
Thanks for the map, Kaktus. Now, is that sea to the north of Lorentia? And if so, is it another part of the Serene Sea or not? 'Cause if it's the former that'd mean the Zadian Empire is trapped on the peninsula and could only conquer and expand southwards.

Hm... I'll have to remember to ask in-quest why the Zadian Empire chose to make a move on Risavia rather than Lorentia. I assume Lorentia wasn't at war with the Dynasty back then since if they were Lorentia would have made a better target than Risavia.

>So with Risavia and Zadian being so close to the sea does that mean they both have a navy?
Yes, but it probably won’t be important to be the quest.
>Now, is that sea to the north of Lorentia? And if so, is it another part of the Serene Sea or not?
Maybe? I have no idea how exactly how the map looks like, but it’s not part of the Serene sea. The Serene sea is supposed to be about the size of Mediterranean Sea.

>'Cause if it's the former that'd mean the Zadian Empire is trapped on the peninsula and could only conquer and expand southwards.
The Empire is mostly trapped by mountains and cold climates in the north, making everything that’s north of it hard to live on.
>I'll have to remember to ask in-quest why the Zadian Empire chose to make a move on Risavia rather than Lorentia.
Risavia was both an easier target and had more fertile soil to take, as one of the reasons for the war was the lack of food in the empire at the time.

>>94603
so if it's not to much trouble what kind of natural bonuses does each race get? I mean in the quest you did say that the Sakkilian have claws which help them in unarmed combat as well as thicker skin and harder bones. They got anything else going for them as well, and what about the other races?

I gotta say, Briannah snuggling Kronos, with her tail tip twitching and a smile on her face, was cute, but her licking the top of his head in her sleep makes it downright adorable. It made me smile, so thanks, Kaktus.

how the fuck can a Vark grow a mustache?

>So if it's not too much trouble what kind of natural bonuses does each race get?
They don’t really get bonuses as much as they are different, so…

Human: Same old boring humans.

Sakkillians: Have harder skin, tougher bones and are generally more muscular then the other races, but are on the other hand heavier and need more food to function properly.

Varkians: Lighter than most people but often less muscular. Are very cultural inclined, both in the way of artists as well as artisans and craftsmen. They also have an easy time thinking outside the box.

Serpens: Are very good at theoretical magic and SCIENCE, but are a bit cultural sterile. Are also originally an aquatic species, so they generally live near seas or large lakes.

Uredo: Plant people, who have a lot of characteristics of a plant. For example, they can survive on sunlight and water alone, regrow limbs and they generally sleep by planting themselves in fertile soil. They also are the least aggressive of all the species.

Hiver: The males are generally weaker and frailer then humans, while females are far stronger. Are born in clutches of five, where about 1/5 of them are born female, thus making them an explosive breeder.

Cibic: Good with magic, but physically frail.

>How the fuck can a Vark grow a mustache?
Please choose one option:
1: With a lot of willpower.
2: It’s actually a fake.
3: It’s actually made out of nose hair.
4: I just took some artistic liberties and made the bird species a bit different.

>I gotta say, Briannah snuggling Kronos, with her tail tip twitching and a smile on her face, was cute, but her licking the top of his head in her sleep makes it downright adorable. It made me smile, so thanks, Kaktus.
It’s always nice to hear that someone likes the things I do, so thank you for telling me that.

I'm just amused that the first chibi thing you've drawn is the king snuggling a piece of toasted bread, King must really love his toasted bread.

I find it somewhat amusing that we gave Kronos the "light" physical trait and it turned out his species already has a lightweight physique. Combine those and I imagine he's had to stay indoors on even moderately breezy days lest he get blown about like a tumbleweed. And kite flying as a hobby would be right out since he'd literally get carried away with it.

>>94798
well we've seen the guy can practically leap up two stories with his light frame so it's not all bad. But damn if we ever get drafted for whatever reason if we can get him a rifle he'd make a damn scary sniper. He'd be able to get almost anywhere and be able to relocate so easily.

>>94800
Oh, yeah, he could make a hell of a sniper. Though, him being a featherweight means he probably shouldn't climb up to or perch anywhere high in anything more than a light wind lest he get blown off and fall.

>>94805
Especially considering magic-guns probably have no recoil.

>>/quest/673426
*Wee-woo wee-woo*
Alarm bells!

So, Kaktus, did you expect the suggesters would get as conflicted as they are when you had Briannah introduce that leash and collar? It certainly seems to have gotten us suggesting more than we have in awhile, that's more sure.

so what exactly is Kronos's relationship with his family? I mean it seems like his father cares for him but generally tries to keep him in the background, his brother cares but brushes us off because he feels like we're not worth his time, and I have no idea what his sister is like. Feel free to throw in Krotos and his mother as well.

>So what exactly is Kronos's relationship with his family?
While he’s generally well liked and loved by all of them, no one have any respect for him. He’s pretty much the runt of the family. In fact, no one really respected him at all at the start of the quest, not even his friends, as he’s just too unreliable even at the best of times.
>Especially considering magic-guns probably have no recoil.
Just because it’s magic doesn’t mean the laws of physics aren’t being… err… wait…

>Anything more than a light wind lest he get blown off and fall.
While his light, he’s not that light. It’s more that he’s able to balance his weight to make himself lighter on his feet.
>So, Kaktus, did you expect the suggesters would get as conflicted as they are when you had Briannah introduce that leash and collar?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.
Medium answer: Eh, pretty much.

so kaktus, way back when we were creating our character did you plan on him being a complete fuck up of the family where no one trust him since he's such a fuck up or if we would have picked skills more in line with a warrior or wizard would we have had better or worse relationship with our family?

Is Cains semblance to Vetinari intentional?

Kaktus 2016/02/12(Fri)16:18 No. 97815 ID: 65a774
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>so kaktus, way back when we were creating our character did you plan on him being a complete fuck up of the family?
Not really. Most characters I write generally take form as the quest progress. He was always supposed to be the least important one of the royal family, but that’s about it.
>Is Cains semblance to Vetinari intentional?
Actually, one of the reference work I was using while training to draw human bodies was actually the Discworld book ”The last hero”, which just so happens to have a nice profile picture of Vetinari… which I tried to mimic… which just so happens was the human face I was the most happy with… which is why Cain has that look… so… yes? I guess?

Fyi some people got really mad about this last update with the knife eye and balcony. Either because other suggesters were trying to get Kronos to fight back despite not being a fighter, or because shit went down that way at all. I'm not, because apparently the balcony we were supposed to avoid was right there, and going into that room resulted in an inescapable prophecy. It happened because we forgot about the prophecy, not because we didn't defend ourselves against the assassin properly. I expect even if we figured out the two visible assassins weren't female, all that would have happened is that Kronos would have been grabbed while trying to look for her, instead of being grabbed while contemplating killing his brother.

What was keeping him from just shooting behind him, though? You don't need to see someone's legs when they're pressed up against you, and there's precious little room they could be in anyway.

Personally I think it's kindof weird that Kronos tried basically every suggestion made, even pointing the gun at his own head, but if he was able to point the gun back like that why didn't he just shoot her arm?
It probably would have been better if the assassin made him drop the gun straight away, or took it from him.

>Going into that room resulted in an inescapable prophecy.
While I admit my writing was a bit lacking the last few updates (especially concerning the description of the room and events occurring), there were actually several ways to prevent Kronos from losing an eye.
One of them would be to notice that there wasn’t a female visible and acting on that information.
Another would have been to explicitly order Sisah to protect you and let the guards arrest the assassins (She’s a bit gun ho so she would have charged even without a prompt if not held back).
It was also possible to make a deal with them, which you did try. Problem was that you used to much stick and not enough carrot, as well as pretty much telling them right out that you would torture them (Which is why the assassin was so pissed at Kronos).
And probably the most controversial action would be to simply let them escape. They had no real reason to harm Kronos anymore and wanted only to run away, being hired thugs without someone paying them anymore.

>What was keeping him from just shooting behind him, though?
>If he was able to point the gun back like that why didn't he just shoot her arm?
I blame my lack of description, but Kronos were already half way through the motions of aiming at Karas when the assassin appeared, which would mean his gun were located in his outstretched arm in full view of her. He was never able to actually move his gun in a position to shoot himself, let alone her, as she jabbed him as soon as he started moving his arm. The only thing he would be able to shoot was the floor near Karas or Karas feet if he was unlucky.

So yes, I should improve my descriptions.

>>98004
Alright so this is more a case of some bad suggestions in the previous update leaving little room to escape in this one.

Oh well, at least now we can get Kronos a cool artificial eye. We won't have to keep bugging Sisah about vision modes!

Ha ha! I've finally caught up! I discovered your quests a year ago (literally a year right down to the exact day) starting from the original Pixel Adventure, I read all the way up to now and I can't get enough of them! My only regret is that I didn't find your quests sooner. But anyways, I just wanted to say, I'm a fan and I very much enjoy all of your quests!

But in all seriousness, all this talk of Sakkilians eating things whole, I kinda want to see it drawn sometime. If only just to see Kronos freak out when Briannah eats a whole roasted Ankwark at dinner one day! XD

>>98007
I am very disappointed now that the cool artificial eye won't be a thing.

>>99629
I agree it would be a heck of a sight to see, but I don't think it would happen in-quest. I think Briannah knows enough about Kronos' phobia and history to know that surprising him by downing a whole roast bird, or any creature, in his sight would likely end with him reacting worse than just freaking out and possibly fearing her, which is something she doesn't want. Now, swallowing a whole watermelon in front of Kronos to see the absolute WTF expression that'll land on his face, that would be more along the lines of what I think she'd do.

>>99633
With the princely sums of money Kronos can throw at the problem, it could very well be a thing, it's just that it won't be within the time frame of the quest. And the form a replacement eye takes doesn't have to be a magical device. There are many avenues of research that could be followed. It could be advanced biomancy to grow a whole new one, either in place or separate and surgically implanted. Or magic and alchemical means to prevent the rejection of a live eye transplanted from another Vark. Or necromancy research into animating a non-living, preserved eye and linking it with his brain, in a way similar to the epilogue of Kaktus' quest Rust. Or who knows what else.

>>99640
Meh, you're probably right. But damnit, now I want to see Briannah do that too! I mean if it does happen, Kaktus is probably going to have it happen off screen and just imply that Briannah did something like that in front of Kronos without actually having to draw or animate it. However, Kronos' reaction will be priceless no matter what! XD

>I just wanted to say, I'm a fan and I very much enjoy all of your quests!
Love to hear that people like what I create, so thanks. Getting suggestions and messages like this is by far the best part of running a quest for me.
>I am very disappointed now that the cool artificial eye won't be a thing.
Sadly, I didn’t want to completely mitigate his wound so fast to make it meaningless. On the upsides, he did get a kick ass eyepatch… that’s only visible from one side for some reason?
>With the princely sums of money Kronos can throw at the problem, it could very well be a thing, it's just that it won't be within the time frame of the quest.
Expect Cyborg ninja Kronos by the end of the epilog! Including laser eyes, sword limbs and ninja chopping action! To be released in a store near you at the heat death of the universe, if the current update pace is anything to go by.
>But in all seriousness, all this talk of Sakkilians eating things whole, I kind of want to see it drawn sometime. If only just to see Kronos freak out when Briannah eats a whole watermelon in front of him.
Well, it would be true to Briannah’s character to mess a bit with Kronos like that, though I don’t know if I have the ability to actually draw it happening… or if a situation that allows it will come up in the quest. So… maybe?

Dang, Kaktus. I wasn't expecting at all that you'd actually show the sex scene, so when I got to the second post of the update I was quite pleasantly surprised to see that you did. You rarely, if ever, do that, making this a bit of a treat. And I rather like that the characters are silhouettes. I figure that you chose to do it that way due to your still limited drawing skill, but it makes for a nice style all the same. It shows enough for us to know what happened, leaving the lewd details to our imaginations. And then what detail is shown, like Bri's grin, really stands out. So nice work, Kaktus.

And this update also totally clears up just where Serpens genitals are located on their bodies. I thought they would most likely be where they actually turned out to be, but I also thought they could have been way back on their tail, like a snake's.

>Dang, Kaktus. I wasn't expecting at all that you'd actually show the sex scene, so when I got to the second post of the update I was quite pleasantly surprised to see that you did.
You can lay the blame / appreciation of that actually happening on this “Purpose” fellow. His little post “forced” me to draw all the porn. All of it!
>I rather like that the characters are silhouettes. I figure that you chose to do it that way due to your still limited drawing skill, but it makes for a nice style all the same.
There is actually a non-silhouette version of the picture, but I thought it would be a bit much for a quest that’s technically “SFW”-ish. That, and I’m not completely happy with how it turned out in the end, so it will be buried with the other smut that a random commenter made me draw and never see the light of day ever again! Of course, Silhouettes are more classy anyway!
>So nice work, Kaktus.
Woo! Positive response! Better than drugs!

>>99781
>Woo! Positive response! Better than drugs!
Holy shit, are you serious?! Well, hot damn, tell me where I can get some of that stuff!

>>99781
Oh, hey, did you reply just today? 'Cause the date stamp on the post is the 16th and I don't remember seeing your reply before today. Maybe something is wonky with the server. Anyway, thanks for the reply, Kaktus.

>>99781
Yay I contributed! And honestly i have to agree I prefer this to actual porn, it was just mildly annoying to have some random picture with obvious porn text. Not that I would mind the non-silhouette in say this thread or a draw thread. Regardless keep up the good work while I go bask in the fact I got my favorite quest author to do something :D

Also curiosity question Kaktus why did you name Kronos Kronos given he is hardly a titan... That is an impossible question to phrase and sound grammatically correct

>>99929
pretty sure it's what the players picked in character creation.

>>99931
...I am so sorry... I'll...ill just be over here contemplating my life choices

>>99932
Are you rethinking your life's purpose?

how fitting the bird named after the titan that ate his children has a wife that eats people

Kaktus please don't give Kronos a vore fetish.

>>101122
That's not his decision to make. It's up to us, the suggesters, to make that decision. And after seeing everyone's reaction after that last update, I'm pretty sure Kronos isn't going to be into that AT ALL!

>>101125
He got a boner regardless of suggestion input.

>>101125
If that were true he'd have every fetish. Every character would have every fetish, even.

Well, the quest thread seems to be rioting.

>>101387
Just now started reading the quest, and I'm surprised by this. The main complaints seem to be that Kronos isn't acting like chargen was supposed to be and that information Kronos knew IC was withheld from the suggestors OOC, namely the torture chambers? Is that right?

>>101388
As far as I see, it only appears to be 8ec390 that's getting all worked up about Kronos not acting exactly like his chargen is written. But Kronos hasn't been acting close in line with his chargen since... The first half of the first thread? Maybe not even then. But it's been more the suggesters pushing his actions and behavior than his chargen. And 8ec390 also seems to be bent out of shape that Kaktus didn't make Kronos' speech as clever and erudite as 8ec390 think's his chargen calls for. But given that only one suggester actually suggested what Kronos say to Sisah, and it was just "tell her your plight," we didn't give him any direction, and so his speech was weak.

Personally, the way I see how Kronos' chargen works, based on my experience in this quest and what Kaktus has mentioned, is that Kronos' active skills, especially speech craft, need us to give him something to do or say. Then it'll be boosted by his skill. So, for say, if we have Kronos make an argument, it'll be more persuasive. But if we give Kronos little or no direction in what to say, Kaktus isn't going to put a load of words in his beak because that would be him making choices for Kronos when we should be the ones doing so. After all, we are supposed to be Kronos' mind.

As for Kronos being the one who ordered the two would-be assassins to be tortured, that I'm slightly peeved about. Up to this point I thought it was somebody else who had ordered the torture, not Kronos. Especially with the way Kronos' thoughts were ordered back in >>/questarch/652365 it read to me like the guards were going to take the would-be assassins to be tortured as part of their questioning. And also because not only was there was only one suggester who even suggested torture, but that that suggester was Kome, who's well known around here to make crazy suggestions.

I'm pretty sure Kaktus intended for chargen to matter more, but kindof forgot about it.

>>101389
It doesn't matter if he's witty or clever about it or not, he should be capable of articulating his thoughts and speech better than when he was in chargen as an infant.

You're still right about torturing the assassins being a bigger issue here, though.

Aaand about me getting my panties in a twist.

>Well, the quest thread seems to be rioting.
Welp, apparently I fucked up…
>I'm pretty sure Kaktus intended for chargen to matter more, but kind of forgot about it.
Less forget, more “character went another direction in my head” kind of thing. If anything, the main thing this has thought me is not to do something like that again, as I’m really bad at keeping myself within borders like that.
>Personally, the way I see how Kronos' chargen works, based on my experience in this quest and what Kaktus has mentioned, is that Kronos' active skills, especially speech craft, need us to give him something to do or say.
…err… yes, that definitely is what I try to do… it’s not like I’m a hack writer that need others to make any kind of impactful speech as I can’t write them myself, no sire…
>As for Kronos being the one who ordered the two would-be assassins to be tortured, that I'm slightly peeved about.
What Sisah think Kronos did and what he actually did is two different things. He just hasn’t had the time to give her a rebuttal yet, as that’s what will happen this update.

>Aaand about me getting my panties in a twist.
But if you didn’t who would keep criticizing me so I can do better?
>Kaktus please don't give Kronos a vore fetish.
The only one with a Vore fetish right now is Doxan… and seeing the reaction of people, I don’t think Kronos will try to follow suit.

Also, concerning the sudden drop in updates, I kind of lost my motivation for a while and thus had to take a bit of a break. Hopefully I’ll get back to updating this thing at least once a day again soon enough.

>The only one with a Vore fetish right now is Doxan… and seeing the reaction of people, I don’t think Kronos will try to follow suit.

Could've been a fear boner.

Anyways take your time man, we love your quests. Why else would we bicker over such things?

I'm regretting not elaborating on the part of my suggestion that one category of impossible sexual desires Kronos could indulge in with Xuv in his dream were those which would be fatal if done for real. I was thinking along the lines of how characters in a fair amount of furry porn often give or receive, in various ways and varying degrees, sizes and quantities that would in one way or another kill a real person. (And which seems to draw pedants out of the woodwork to point that fact out.) But how it came out in the update, with what Xuv said and way she said it and how wrong Kronos thought it was after he woke up, makes it feel like Kronos has deep, dark sexual desires for that which is much, much worse than laying with his sister. Things along the lines of snuff, gore, violent torture, or even dying himself by sex. These are just my thoughts, though. I might have misjudged or read too much into it and I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, because otherwise I'll have inadvertently been the one to put that into Kronos' mind, albeit indirectly.

I wonder what would've happened if we'd cooperated with the Archbishop from the start...

Been mean8ng to ask since the first part but ended up forgetting, but is this story inspired by any means from the Kiesha'ra series? BY now its very much moved away, but i still see a whole lot of elements that are awfully close to that series (two warring factions that choose to marry off royale members, factions being bird people and lizard people, sibling betrayal, alcoholic parent, posible dangerous baby, lizard folk are hyper sexual compared to more uptight bird people, etc)

>>105453
I'm wondering more how things would have gone if we hadn't done the prayer ritual to Xuv at all, or at least didn't involve Tim or any other mage who'd provide more than a drop of magic for the ritual. If not for that Xuv wouldn't have gotten the little bit of extra magic power she needed to project out and start gathering more.

And I'm wondering how the "Prince Kronos weaponized cuisine" project went for the Varkian military...

>Been mean8ng to ask since the first part but ended up forgetting, but is this story inspired by any means from the Kiesha'ra series?
Considering I’ve never even heard about that series before, I have to say no, it is not.
>I wonder what would've happened if we'd cooperated with the Archbishop from the start...
>I'm wondering more how things would have gone if we hadn't done the prayer ritual to Xuv at all…
Seeing that a large part of the quest is in an undecided flux at all times, nearly any different decision might have taken it in a completely different direction.

>And I'm wondering how the "Prince Kronos weaponized cuisine" project went for the Varkian military...
Sadly, they were never able to fully replicate his dastardly bad cookie, thus they were only ever able to achieve some slight food sickness and nothing else.

I've only just caught up and it might have been answered already but was there a way to save Karas?
If not from execution (via discovering possible outside influence) then from becoming feral/'fully possessed'?

Anyway good work thus far, really enjoying this quest

So, what made you decide to use the species you have? Considering you use basically the same species every time

>>105586
>If not from execution (via discovering possible outside influence) then from becoming feral/'fully possessed'?
I'd guess the tipping point was when Kronos, Kira and Karas in a cage were in Karas' apartment and Kira asked Kronos how things were going with Briannah. When Karas heard Kronos' response that things were not only going well but that he was going to bed Briannah, you could see that it shattered Karas right there. The revelation that Kronos, Karas' little brother that he loved and thought would be on his side, was a Sakkilian-lover and hated him broke the last thread of hope and love he had. If we had realized that not just revealing that but throwing it in Karas' face would break him, or at least be excessively cruel, and had Kronos step out into the hall with Kira to tell her, Karas could still keep the belief that Kronos was still on his side regarding Sakkilians. As it is, Karas' rage and hatred turned to include Kronos and that was that. Even if Kronos had met with Karas before the trial and claimed that he was putting on a act for Kira, I think it would have been too late.

>>105595
he was infuriated sure, but he was still using people words and acting like he could do something about his situation.
when he appeared at the trial he wasn't even a person, not really, and even then I just don't see him giving up trying to get revenge on sakkilians (when they'd just 'taken' possibly the last thing he cared about from him) by throwing a tantrum during his best chance to fight his situation.

>>105612
What I'm thinking is that the rage and loss from what Kronos said churning through Karas' mind made him even more susceptible to the nightmare in the depths working its way into his mind, and from there it wholly possessed him. Where Karas was imprisoned at the time may also have had some part to play. He was kept in a underground safe room, which might have been closer to the Catacombs of the Godless/Soul Kiln and thus the influence of what is in it. There was also the period of more than a day before he showed at the trial and was kept in that safe room during which the rising darkness could work on him while he was wholly alone, and being cooped up alone in a bad mental state just makes things worse.

I've also thought about whether there was a way to save Karas and I couldn't come up with a way to that wouldn't cause serious diplomatic and political fallout. Other than breaking him out before he went totally insane and putting him into hiding, I could only think of meeting with his defense council and telling them everything. The false charge of attempted murder on Kronos that allowed the search of Karas' apartment, which led to the obviously planted order to use Choking Willow on Qelba, which gave them cause to rip the walls open and floorboards up. From that they got the Blood Blossom under the floorboards and the hidden room with Karas' trophies of Sakkilian eyes taken from those he killed or had killed. Kronos would also have to tell Karas' defense about how he knew the order on Qelba was bogus because Doxan was the one to slip choking powder, which was ultimately harmless, into Briannah's drink. And from there Kronos would also have to say he knew Kira was working with Briannah in secret to take down Karas. With this the whole chain of fabricated evidence leading to the real evidence would blow up, the credibility of the rest of the evidence would be thrown into doubt, and the anti-Sakkilian nobility that were on Karas' side would be infuriated. It would have left Kira in a much weaker position right at a precarious time for Risavia. A bad outcome overall.

>So, what made you decide to use the species you have? Considering you use basically the same species every time.
“I like lizards.” “Mantises are neat, let add some.” “I need some real alien species, let steal some from far superior works make some up.” “I can’t draw humans, here’s a peep bird instead.”Then I just kept the ones I made up previously, the end.
So basically, I just kept adding things I liked and kept them for the next iteration.
>Was there a way to save Karas?
Considering he was already being manipulated by the nightmare as well as doing most of his horrible crimes before the quest even started… well… “saving” him might not have been in your best interests. Of course, as the previous posters stated, Kronos did make things worse for him, thus putting him completely on the path he is on now. If things went differently he might have escaped the death sentence but he would still be a threat for Kronos to overcome, just in another form.
>Anyway good work thus far, really enjoying this quest.
Thanks! Always great to hear someone appreciate my work.

Just making a poll to see if people want the quest to stay the way it is or if they want it to become actually explicit in its content.

http://www.strawpoll.me/11730712

>>105909
No option for not really caring either way, so I'll just post. Whatever ends up being chosen I'm confident sexual stuff won't end up getting a larger role in the plot than it already has.

>>105909

I feel like explicit stuff would be more demanding, production-wise, in this quest. Something about how the quest has been drawn and written so far makes me vaguely feel that it's not really intended to be compatible with that sort of thing. I'm not sure how to express it, really.

At the very least, even without any concerns specifically related to this quest, more explicit stuff is more difficult to produce, both in terms of art and writing. It would be an extra workload. So, it deserves consideration just on that level.

I feel as though fully explicit sex scenes should be done only if you are very confident in your anatomy.

I voted explicit because I remember that one of the reasons you started this quest was to improve your drawing work, and being forced to draw most of the body rather then half should help with some of the bodily form.

>I voted explicit because I remember that one of the reasons you started this quest was to improve your drawing work, and being forced to draw most of the body rather than half should help with some of the bodily form.
Indeed, that is one of the major reasons why I want to try this out. This is more of an experiment than anything to see what I can accomplish. Even after the vote, it won’t be set in stone. If I can’t do it, I can’t… and if I can… well.
>Whatever ends up being chosen I'm confident sexual stuff won't end up getting a larger role in the plot than it already has.
Seeing that one of the mayor players in the quest is a mad sex god… yeah, I’m pretty sure it can’t get any worse than that.

>I feel as though fully explicit sex scenes should be done only if you are very confident in your anatomy.
Which is exactly why I want to push my limits so I can gain more experience with anatomy. Right now I’m kind of stuck doing the same thing over and over out of laziness, so this might be the motivation I need to go further. I have done some smut drawings before to push my limits; I’ve just not posted them. For example, the Sisah banging Kronos silhouettes posted in the quest actually have a real picture under it.
>More explicit stuff is more difficult to produce, both in terms of art and writing.
Which is why I’m going to start off a bit slow, maybe only doing a quick snap shot of the action, both the not slow down the quest even more and to not make it just a porn quest. As for writing, right now I’m leaning towards just having some quick dialog and forgo describing anything, as writing is the thing that takes up the most time for me.

Kaktus, I gotta say, you're doing pretty good with drawing your first fully explicit scenes. I'm especially pleased with the image of Kronos and Briannah. It really shows just how muscular and massive Bri is, both in general and in comparison to Kronos. It's better than I imagined. And I also found Bri's "O face" funny.

...Oh my fucking god! Who the fuck are these idiots suggesting in the quest thread?! Do they not get the perilousness of Kronos' situation?! That you don't talk back to the mad god who just demonstrated she can rip your soul out and eat it, along with Zela's?! That you don't try to bargain when Xuv just said she won't! When Kronos is holding no goddamn cards here, save one! Do they not realize that what Xuv really wants, really desires, what she can't do herself, is to die?! It's a bunch of IDs that haven't ever shown up before, that's what. Yet another bunch of drop-ins, just like the monumental clusterfuck that happened with Karas, but this time there's no way out. And then Bad. Fucking. End. ...You goddamn twits.

>>106106
Sorry, dude. Some people are just assholes.

>>106106
>all these ad hominems
Tone down the salt, mate. Unless you have precognitive powers, you're guessing about what'll happen same as anyone else. Myself, I think Xuv is bluffing about what she's able or willing to do. I suspect that her other personality would emerge again if she tried something like what you're worried about.

>>106108
If you're so sure Xuv is bluffing, then why don't you just suggest Kronos wake up? It's what would have worked last time if she hadn't swayed him to stay with her temptations. If she really is bluffing she won't stop him from waking up.

>>106114
Because that doesn't accomplish anything with my tentative idea about Xuv/Ilyunag or however it's spelled.

To everybody who read my profanity laced and salty post above, I apologize for that, and for the salt in my in-quest post. I just saw how a couple suggesters in the quest weren't taking the situation seriously and it set me off. Now that I've calmed down a bit, I see I was far too harsh. Again, I'm sorry.

>>106122
It's Illasia. Illasia is the goddess of life, light, nature and fertility. And I would like to hear your theory about Xuv and Illasia. If you do, I promise to give it its due and not be harsh.

>>106134
Well, I had been trying to find where Ilasia last showed up and remember what it was that made me suspect that Kronos' defiance would trigger a personality switch, but I'd say the latest update definitively proved me wrong. I'll eat my words and admit that offering to kill her was the right choice and refusing was the wrong choice.

>>106146
Thank you for being courteous and admitting that. I'm still sorry for my harsh language in my post. I'm just feeling anxious about the quest right now and it came out back there. That and feeling unduly large disappointment and criticism of myself.

I keep thinking about all the ways this could have been headed off I could have caught and should have caught. Of how Xuv wouldn't have been able to do this if we hadn't fed her, and that I should have seen that. That there were warning signs all over the goddamn place that Xuv was Bad News and I didn't heed them. The Temple scripture of a "demon in the depths" and Bri mentioning Belseth's drunken tirade about keeping a demon contained, as just two examples. Xuv's speech and behavior are even more, and more than enough reason to avoid having anything to do with her. And I keep thinking that now, because of my failure, because I wasn't pushing Kronos to be proactive or because I didn't post every damn update, it's all going to end up... Well... I don't think a straight up Bad End, but there's ways in which it can conclude we won't like but the world is still safe from a mad god.

In reply to >>/quest/764436:
>He's already done vore before in Rust, one of his previous pixel quests. Which is why I'm still baffled that everyone freaked out when vore happened here, but no one cared when it happened in Rust.

If I remember correctly, the only ones in Rust ever shown or mentioned eating people, either in body, mind or soul, were Daemons; Specifically I remember the big ball of collective screw-up that got Thaark's soul devoured. It wasn't the characters we were suggesting to or the others on our side that did it.

That said, I don't object to the vore elements in this quest, since I think it adds a interesting twist. And it's not just jammed in. Like, the Sakkilians have background reason for their practice of eating others. Biological, religious, social and probably geographical reasons, given their harsher northern clime being harder to hunt in or raise livestock. Being primarily carnivores they may have resorted to cannibalism early on to just stay alive and it morphed into a spiritual act over time. And Briannah being raised in the Empire she grew up with those beliefs, so eating another whole as she did is in line with that. And two of the four that were eaten by her were also Sakkilians, who probably considered it a great honor. The last was a old Serpens scholar who gave his life in the pursuit of scientific inquiry, which in Serpens society is considered a excellent way to die.

I think I rambled that last part and wrote too much. Ah, well.

>>106287
>If I remember correctly, the only ones in Rust ever shown or mentioned eating people, either in body, mind or soul, were Daemons; Specifically I remember the big ball of collective screw-up that got Thaark's soul devoured. It wasn't the characters we were suggesting to or the others on our side that did it.
Ah, but that where you're wrong. You seem to be forgetting that the wiki page of Rust says that it takes place over 3 connected quests: Rust, Unbroken, and Numb. It was during Numb that we have our main character (male mantis) do it a few times (unintentionally), including one time we even told him to do it and we told him to go kidnap a few guys no one will miss, so that he can keep them as food for when he gets hungry.

Personally I can deal with eating people so long as cute piles don't get mentioned. It's not my thing, but it doesn't really bother me until it gets into details like cute piles.

>>106289
Yes, I know all the info for the quests in what was Kaktus' originally planned RUNE arc (Rust, Unbroken, Numb, Entropy, and a unnamed final quest) were put into the Rust page, given Rust was the first and the quests intertwine. You only said Rust so I didn't think of Unbroken or Numb. Though, to be fair, I'd also kinda forgotten about Daithi in Numb, so even if I had included the other two quests I would have still left him out. However, if I remember correctly, now that my memory is refreshed, Daithi is a half-Daemon of sorts, son of the Deceiver, so I'm mostly correct about Daemons being the only ones consuming people in those quests.

>>106290
I generally concur with your sentiment. However, in this case I'd accept that kind of dialog because it was Xuv saying those things, and it accentuated just how vile and twisted she is.

I’m glad people a freaking out a bit, as that was my intention, though I might have overdone it a bit. The extreme sexual undertones of… pretty much anything Xuv did / would do was deliberately done to make her more creepy / vile / disgusting or what have you, as she is supposed to be a dangerous mad person who find sexual satisfaction in everything, including her own death. So, yes, the intention was that it would creep you out and that’s the end of that, seeing as there aren’t other mad sex gods to creep us out around right now.

As for the whole eating thing, it will probably from now on be played as an odd background thing (as with Sakkilians… what with Xuv being a Sakkilian as well…) or for terror (there’s a reason why Kronos visions of the nightmare has so many mouths…).

>so long as cute piles don't get mentioned.
Why do I have a feeling that’s the line I won’t live down? Ever?

>>106316
>intention to freak people out
Fair.

>Why do I have a feeling that’s the line I won’t live down? Ever?
Because you wanted to make an impression on people and it worked. Accept your fate as a cute pile of memes.

>
Why do I have a feeling that’s the line I won’t live down? Ever?

You do tend to get one every quest you create or so.

>>106316
>Why do I have a feeling that’s the line I won’t live down? Ever?

because it's the kinda thing you would read in an ERP :V

>>106316
>Why do I have a feeling that’s the line I won’t live down? Ever?
Don't worry. It'll go away as soon as you do something even more memorable then that.

What exactly is "Cute Piles"?

Did you planned to add the vore part to this quest from before, or was it just an idea that you decided to put after mostly everyone agreed about adding NSFW images on this quest?

>>106366
Vore had been mentioned long before then, and honestly I don't see it as being explicit content. That said, did our reactions to things guide it this way, or was it planned?

Man I really REALLY wish that updates would not disprove our reasoning for doing/saying something and then AFTER that have the protagonist do it anyway. If you're gonna force a mistake even though it's so easily verifiable like that, can't you at least switch the order around so the protag doesn't look like a complete idiot?

I am thou, and thou art I...

>>106543
Also, apparently denying that something exists and questioning its claims that it's you are the same thing now.

>>106543
>>106567
Yeah, this is ticking me off as well. We didn't even get a chance to figure out what the hell Nega-Kronos was before it was out of the mirror and had Kronos grappled, about to trap him to the mirror realm.

Given it was talking somewhat like Kronos' thoughts in the episode in the alley when the Nightmare came out of the stonework, along with the thoughts that weren't his, I was thinking it could be a aspect of the Nightmare. Or a part of Kronos' mind that was a agent of the Nightmare, either intentionally or not. Or a part of Kronos' buried psyche empowered by the presence of the Nightmare. But I settled on it being Kronos' psychological damage, which it was, just not the way I thought and not the right way.

But what really gets my anxiety up is that if we fuck this up, if we misread the situation, Kronos is going to be trapped in the depths of his mind while his... I think it's his pessimism, as the opposite to Kronos' mostly blithe, rather oblivious optimism. I could be wrong, though. Anyway, the part of Kronos' mind we know as Kronos will be trapped in the depths and forced to watch while his ruthless opposite runs amok. And I don't have any idea what to suggest here. All I've got is wild flailing at straws. What the hell can you say to convince a entity that has the upper hand, the power from Xuv's mind, and is wholly convinced he's right and Kronos is a total idiot so Kronos' word is worthless, to do anything? I got nothing, so I'm going to throw words at it in the hope that something works but I can't shake this feeling of dread that all we suggest will be for naught.

Actually, I can see one reason that Kronos would get steered into the mirror: To also gain access to the ability to see all pasts and futures that Nega-Kronos got when Kronos stood before the mirror.

Should I calm it on the real multiplicity suggestion stuff?

Welp, completely forgot to write a reply here… sorry…

>Because it's the kinda thing you would read in an ERP :V
Wait, this isn’t a badly written ERP? :V
>Man I really REALLY wish that updates would not disprove our reasoning for doing/saying something and then AFTER that have the protagonist do it anyway.
Wait, where in that update does that happen? Either way, if I remember correctly, that update was both forced, rushed and written in reverse (When I get a writing block I usually just skip to somewhere else and start writing…) so I have to admit it might not be of the best quality, so my apologies for that.

>Did you planned to add the vore part to this quest from before, or was it just an idea that you decided to put after mostly everyone agreed about adding NSFW images on this quest?
The whole eating thing kind of just fell into the quest way back at the start of it, with the Sakkilians being all weird and stuff. Also, it’s not really shown in an explicit or NSFW way (Xuv’s dialog withstanding, but everything she does is explicit.) so there’s that.
>That said, did our reactions to things guide it this way, or was it planned?
Bit of column A, bit of column B. You’d be surprised how little I actually have planned for this thing and how much your suggestions change the story as a whole.

>Should I calm it on the real multiplicity suggestion stuff?
Any mental troubles or defectives shown by the cast of this quest are not supposed to represent any real mental illnesses etc. etc…

Technically not the right thread for this, but I guess more people will see this here. Have been planning on trying to finish “Will we dream” for a while now, but I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the bad pixel art or convert it completely to bad drawn art instead, so here’s a vote for all you lovelies to decide for me:

http://www.strawpoll.me/12263645

With that, Strange bedfellows might be put on hold / get a bit slower as I’ll either revive “Will we dream” or start this new quest I have had collecting dust in my head for a very long time (Even before Rust and all that), a quest that will be a lot shorter and serious than my other quests. Either way, I feel I need something a bit different for a while so we’ll just see what the future holds, eh?

(And expect the next update tomorrow… that is to say, probably in the middle of the night for most of you.)

>>108384
I think the pixel art is fine for the most part. But maybe mix in some drawn panels when you feel more detail is required, like important action scenes, inspecting objects, etc.

>>108386
I agree with this! It's going to be really jarring to go from pixel to pure art.

>>108386
this...

plus I kinda like your pixal art. It's nice and does make it stand out since not many people actually use pixal art on this site.

>Have been planning on trying to finish “Will we dream"
What about you're other pixel quests? Are you going to try to finish "Unbroken" and "Numb" also?

>continue with the bad pixel art or convert it completely to bad drawn art instead
To be honest, I'd enjoy seeing you go back to your roots and start doing pixel art again. But at the same time, I don't want you to stop drawing out your quests either.

>>108386
This sounds like a good idea!

.....annnnnd now I can't stop thinking about what the cast of "Strange Bedfellows" would look like pixelated!

>start this new quest I have had collecting dust in my head for a very long time (Even before Rust and all that), a quest that will be a lot shorter and serious than my other quests.
Possible new quest, yay! :D

>A quest that will be a lot shorter and serious than my other quests.
It was supposed to say “less serious”… shorter and less serious… something a bit more silly and not as convoluted as my other quests.

>I think the pixel art is fine for the most part. But maybe mix in some drawn panels when you feel more detail is required, like important action scenes, inspecting objects, etc.
Seeing the responses here and the votes so far, it seems it will go this way.
>But at the same time, I don't want you to stop drawing out your quests either.
Don’t worry; I’m not planning on abandoning Strange Bedfellows just yet. It’s just that it’s starting to feel like a shore to update it, so I need to take a break from it and work on something else for a while.

>What about you're other pixel quests? Are you going to try to finish "Unbroken" and "Numb" also?
Sadly, the whole Rust sage became way too convoluted and massive for its own good, so it kind of collapsed into itself out of the share weight of everything. So no, it won’t be coming back.
>.....annnnnd now I can't stop thinking about what the cast of "Strange Bedfellows" would look like pixelated!
If I get back into the groove making pixel stuff, I might do something like this for a lark.
>Possible new quest, yay! :D
Well, I hope more people are as enthusiastic as you are about the concept. I’ll just leave with that the new quest working name is “Space Suit Larry”, though it will probably be changed, but people who remember those old sierra games will probably know what direction the quest will take, at least.

>>108400
>Sadly, the whole Rust sage became way too convoluted and massive for its own good, so it kind of collapsed into itself out of the share weight of everything. So no, it won’t be coming back.
ahh, really wanted to see how the whole deamon mantis bit played out. Plus I didn't find it that convoluted. 600 or 1000 years ago (can't recall how long ago it was off the top of my head) we saved the universe... again but those three spheres of light (that we mostly ignored because we had other shit on our plate at the time) decided to the new world we helped save needed to be one of war and know we'd never allow that and trapped us in the ultimate prison. One where someone always needed our help. And there we rotted in our prison while the universe around us was fighting over imagined slights until a third party showed up and mess with everything. Granted this screwed us over even more at first but with even more outside parties showing up to our prison and actually telling us what the hell is going on we finally got a plan to stop the one bitch from gutting the place for her 15 minutes of fame and killing everyone inside, then for us to find a way to download all the AI's that developed a soul for being active for so long into the SAIs (well that was the end result anyways) so they too could escape this dying prison as well. Also curious on how you were going to kill us since in your second pixal quest we did die once already only to be brought back when everything went to shit.

>but people who remember those old sierra games will probably know what direction the quest will take, at least.
Wait, do you mean old sierra games as in a fun, light hearted, if somewhat cheesy story or in the "every action you take that isn't the right one will either kill you outright, screw you over making it imposable for you to ever continue so you'll have to reload a save, or screw you over late game where you already saved pass the point of no return but had to beat half the game to realize you fucked up way back when and now have to restart the game and hope that you can catch where you screwed up this time around so you don't have to do it again?"

I'm sad to hear Numb and Unbroken aren't coming back (Rust was the quest that really hooked me on this site). Very glad that Will We Dream? is returning though! Not to knock your hand drawn art at all, but I think your kitbashed pixel style is very unique and appealing and hope you continue with it.

>>108400
>Sadly, the whole Rust sage became way too convoluted and massive for its own good, so it kind of collapsed into itself out of the share weight of everything. So no, it won’t be coming back.
Awwwwwwwwwww!!!!! D-':>

Well, I've always enjoyed your pixel art! Especially since whenever I read those quests, you always hid little important things in the images that were really hard to notice! You really made us work really hard to find those little things, which made big changes to whatever problems we were trying to solve! That's what I found enjoyable in those quests!

>Wait, do you mean old sierra games as in a fun, light hearted, if somewhat cheesy story or in the "every action you take that isn't the right one will kill you”.
As in, the story is kind of based on the original Leisure Suit Larry (in SPACE!), not the actual “guide dammit” playstyle of them. That said, do remember to pick up the toothbrush in the first room or the last puzzle will be unsolvable.

>I didn't find it that convoluted. 600 or 1000 years ago we saved the universe... again but those three spheres of light decided to the new world we- [Insert wall of text here.] - only to be brought back when everything went to shit.
I’m pretty sure you just proved my point. That is only a fraction of the story, yet it’s already way too complex to remember fully. Compared to “Brother finds powers of a dead god, tries to become a god” or “Conspiracy about stealing a powerful weapon schematic” or even “loser tries to get laid”.

>I'm sad to hear Numb and Unbroken aren't coming back (Rust was the quest that really hooked me on this site).
Well, that does warm the cockles of my heart to hear. Always nice to hear people appreciate what I do.
>I think your kitbashed pixel style is very unique and appealing and hope you continue with it.
>kitbashed and unique.
I’m pretty sure that some kind of oxymoron… but still, I guess it is unique in the way that no one else on this site steals borrows art from games and stuff like that…

>>108442
alright, alright, I get. I just liked the story. But that story can be dumbed down even further as well. "You are an ancient being that is trapped in a computer simulation. You need to escape and save everyone while doing so."

Granted I will say some things that probably made it a cluster fuck of a mess would have been the one story that takes place in the frozen north simply because of the characters. Their was nothing wrong with the characters themselves but I do think you kinda overloaded us with their personal problems as well as piling on actual story relevant things as well that did make it feel a little overwhelming at times. I mean in rust the biggest character problem we had was the MC being turned into an undead which he quickly got over. In the third story, the one with the mantis, again, only the MC really had any pressing character problems. However in the frozen north story EVERYONE WAS FALLING APART. Felt a little overwhelming at times.

Oh and for your space suit Larry quest. Will it be using your normal races or no?

>Granted I will say some things that probably made it a cluster fuck of a mess would have been the one story that takes place in the frozen north simply because of the characters. There was nothing wrong with the characters themselves but I do think you kinda overloaded us with their personal problems.
That’s what I felt kind of happen with both of the quests. There was just more and more things piling up that it just overwhelmed everyone. In the end I simply couldn’t keep everything together and it just spiraled out of control in a direction I didn’t want it to go. So yes, I made it to be big and simply couldn’t keep it together in a way I wanted it to.

>Oh and for your space suit Larry quest. Will it be using your normal races or no?
It will not have any species from my other quests, no, as it will not be connected to any of the other quests in any way. I wanted to story to have a lot of really odd and weird aliens, so my usual fare didn’t really fit, seeing as most of them are just animal / insect people. There might be a cameo of a Cibic or an Uredo, though.


Also, new quest will be up in a minute or two... probably...

You know it's kinda amazing how well your art style goes well with the Visual Novel type.

I don't want to sound mean but the hand in the last update looks like a clown glove and now I can stop picturing Kronos dressed as a clown or as a character from some old ass Disney cartoon and it's cracking me.

>>110321
Yeah, I thought that earlier on as well, with Mirror Kronos when he was gesturing right after Kronos reconciled with him. As soon as I saw them I immediately thought of those gloved hands Micky Mouse has.

I also notice you mix up should and could a lot, is there a reason?

>I don't want to sound mean but the hand in the last update looks like a clown glove and now I can stop picturing Kronos dressed as a clown or as a character from some old ass Disney cartoon and it's cracking me.
Hands… my life long nemesis… DAMN YOU HANDS! But yes, I did try a more cartoonish style of hands, as Kronos is supposedly wearing gloves and it’s easier to draw so… I’ll probably try something else now…
>I also notice you mix up should and could a lot, is there a reason?
As I’ve said before, English isn’t my first language, so things like should and could is kind of hard for me to remember… especially as they both sounds the freaking same…

>English isn’t my first language
Could've fooled me dude.

Man, where are the suggesters lately? Last update only had two suggestions besides mine, and this update only has two so far, and one of them is from Kome. It's a rare coherent Kome post, but that's still only two responses, and they're both pretty paltry. Where'd the usual suggesters go? Are there finals going on right now or something?

>>110478
I let myself fall behind 100 posts and haven't gotten around to binging it for two threads x.x

Soon I shall pass my watchlist on to my grandchildren, so they may fix my mistakes.

I don't have a single clue how the fuck Kronos is going to survive this situation. Elete's ward is gone in the first encounter, so we have no protection any more. We don't know how the hell to use Cain's silver teaspoon. Kronos' gun's flame doesn't even slow down that monster and he can't aim for shit with the gun's ice mode 'cause he's missing a eye. What the heck do we do here? Just run and hope that the tanky monster can't catch up? And that we chose the right way when we don't have any solid idea which way is better? And hope and pray that Kaktus will be lenient with all us dumb asses?

Really, I have nothing but a sense of impending, inescapable doom now. That the whole quest is going to come to a abrupt, terrible end in a bloody pile of failure 'cause we couldn't figure out the right thing to do at this or another crucial point. And that it was something simple and obvious, but we're too fucking dense and oblivious to have picked it up. Or that we actually blew it several updates ago and there's no way of saving it now and it's only continuing to show the horrible outcome of our fuck up.

And I do have to say I'm specifically peeved that we didn't get any clue that the crucified body on the altar was that of one of the abominations Elete drew and not just another bit of horror scenery like the hanging corpses. If we knew that I'd have called for Kronos to either shoot the door hinges away with ice-shot to escape or riddle the monstrosity with shots. As is, we lost our only protective ward to something that might have been avoidable if we had a hint it was there.

>>110761
>he can't aim for shit with the gun's ice mode 'cause he's missing a eye.
wait what? You know a lot of people to close one eye when aiming down the sights of a gun to help get a better aim right? missing an eye shouldn't mess up much except depth perception and that would probably only mess with quick draw/shooting from the hip. Aim shots should be fine.

>>110761
I wish to apologize for this post. I wrote it at 3 AM when I was in a particularly anxious and bad state of mind and it shows. I guess I should stop posting right before bed and try to do it earlier in the day to keep this kind of thing in check.

>>110762
There's two problems I can think of with this: First is that it takes time to aim, which is something Kronos often doesn't have enough of those times he's needed to fire his gun. Second is that he hasn't had the time to practice with his gun since he lost his eye to learn to compensate for that.

>>110767
well granted if something is to close to aim at then kronos probably doesn't need to have that good of aim anyways to be able to hit it.

>I don't have a single clue how the fuck Kronos is going to survive this situation. Really, I have nothing but a sense of impending, inescapable doom now. That the whole quest is going to come to a abrupt, terrible end in a bloody pile of failure 'cause we couldn't figure out the right thing to do at this or another crucial point.
I don’t know if it means that I’m a good writer or a horrid one if every time my characters run into to some rough resistance people starts to panic. Do you really think I would just kill everyone off after almost writing this crap for two years straight? (Geez, have it really been that long?) While there are dangers, there won’t be anything that you can’t solve, I’m sure.

>He can't aim for shit with the gun's ice mode 'cause he's missing an eye.
While his aim is not as good as before, he can still hit the broad side of a barn without trouble.
>I wrote it at 3 AM when I was in a particularly anxious and bad state of mind and it shows.
Now I feel a bit bad if my writing is making you anxious and lose sleep. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time you’ve said that either.

>Man, where are the suggesters lately? Last update only had two suggestions besides mine, and this update only has two so far, and one of them is from Kome.
They all migrated to the space waifu thread it seems. I’m sure they’ll come back… eventually… I hope…
>I let myself fall behind 100 posts and haven't gotten around to binging it for two threads x.x
Grab a drink and start to bing, because this ride is nearing its conclusion.
>Could've fooled me dude.
Then you’re easy to fool, as I’m pretty sure my vocabulary isn’t refined enough to really hold a conversation of any real renown… I mean, thank you for the compliment, I do hope my English skills are good enough for you to not lose your emersion when you read my quests… *cough*…

>>110820
>Now I feel a bit bad if my writing is making you anxious and lose sleep. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time you’ve said that either.
No, it's okay. It's not your writing's fault I sometimes get anxious and that my sleep schedule is often fucked up. It's just that your quest sometimes ends up getting that sleepless anxiety dumped in it.

>They all migrated to the space waifu thread it seems. I’m sure they’ll come back… eventually… I hope…
Yeah, they'll come back. Actually, they did come back since that observation. That slow spate might have been just because the quest had been resumed not long ago and not all of the regular suggesters had noticed it was back yet.

>That slow spate might have been just because the quest had been resumed not long ago and not all of the regular suggesters had noticed it was back yet.
That might be it. Though, seeing that Boldly Coming is back again, there might be a new migration soon… or both quest will flourish or something, who knows?

Well, Kronos getting his right hand bitten off and losing his pistol as well happened as I figured it would when Kaktus put off updating for a day and instead updated Boldly Coming. And it wasn't inevitable, was it, Kaktus? We could have avoided Kronos losing a hand, right? But what were the indications and hints as to how to do that? And what was the point of no return? Was it right up to when Nerfatu's mouth was poised to bite or at some point earlier?

Could Kronos have yanked his hand out of Nerfatu's maw if he hadn't fired his pistol? But I assume Nerfatu could somehow sense the pistol since he knew to bite there, so wouldn't he have sensed that Kronos was pulling his hand back and chomped down same as if the pistol was fired? Or would Nerfatu not have noticed as quick, instead biting down on the pistol's barrel, ripping it away and missing Kronos' hand?

But before then, could Kronos have entirely avoided having Nerfatu's maw poised to bite his hand off? If Kronos had shed his bloodied clothes so Nerfatu did not have the scent to follow? But if that would have worked there wasn't a hint it would, was there? So outside of a leap of logic we wouldn't have thought of that, would we?

And was the silver spoon activated by Kronos' mental call for help alone, or did it require him to be in a dire situation as well? Because if it's the former, if we had figured that out earlier then the figment of Cain could have distracted and then attacked Nerfatu in the Nightmare room while Nerfatu was still blinded.

Lantern Soul's plot looks like it could fit in with the backstory of Strange Bedfellows.

Five gods keeping souls in the heavens, and an opposition trying to take the souls back so they can be recycled in the River.

Putting this reply to 91ee5f here so I don't clog up the quest itself more with questdis stuff:
>>/quest/828648
>Kaktus just gave us a Deus Ex Machina.
No, it wasn't quite a deus ex machina because Zela was already established to be nearby and it's plausible she could hear all this noise and came over to ask for us to stop it. A actual deus ex machina would be a totally new person, item or ability that resolves a impossible situation figuratively dropping out of the sky.

That said, it's been obvious these last two updates that Kaktus has had to bend things a lot to keep the quest on track and not crashing and burning because we were so damn stupid as to go into the ward-less garden when we knew we were a target. I'm not complaining he does, I'm just disappointed in myself and the other suggesters because it's feeling like we're taking advantage of plot armor pulling shit like this. That we're relying on Kaktus bending the narrative into pretzels to save our dumb asses. And I know that we should not do that because we can and will hit a spot where the quest can continue to a adequate end despite our bad choice, just with a terribly steep toll, and Kaktus will take it.

>>115428
>we were so damn stupid as to go into the ward-less garden when we knew we were a target.
Well, Zela refused the Queen's summons and we figured she would keep refusing any letters that were sent to her, so showing up in person made sense at the time.

Besides, if anyone is to blame, it's Kaktus! It's his/her fault for making us so desperate for an answer to these puzzles he keeps throwing at us!

>>115431
But we could have had Kronos send a request to Zela, since she'd probably be more receptive to meeting him than Kira, and include a explanation that he couldn't come out to meet her because of a magic assassination threat. I even stuck just that suggestion in my post, saying to try it before Kronos and company went into the garden, but I guess there were just too many other suggesters for going that it was dropped.

And Kaktus also gave us a sure option to force Zela into the palace by Kira's order, which would have been better than heading out into the unsafe garden. It likely would have made Zela mad, but it would have been safe.

>>115433
I think technically, Zela being able to make the Nightmare go away counts as a sudden new ability that solves this insolvable problem. So I stand by my Deus Ex Machina statement! .....even though I'm probably definitely wrong about it.

>it would have been safe.
Like I said in the main quest, safe but it would've left no proof. Without that proof, everyone would've doubted the plan would work and that would've let the Nightmare show up to attack us anyways!

Now that it's been proven, there won't be any doubt in anyone's mind! Which'll prevent the Nightmare from using the group's doubt to show up!

>>115428
We never confirmed what the ward was blocking. Now we know the agents of the Nightmare can teleport and also completely disable anyone that has a mind affected by mortal sin.

>It's been obvious these last two updates that Kaktus has had to bend things a lot to keep the quest on track and not crashing and burning because we were so damn stupid as to go into the ward-less garden when we knew we were a target.
I don’t know if I should feel insulted or complimented that you believe I wasn’t planning something like this ever since Karas was turned…
>I think technically, Zela being able to make the Nightmare go away counts as a sudden new ability that solves this insolvable problem.
Except she’s shown to have it before… and there’s been a lot of hints that some people have this ability… and it was pretty much outright said before you guys went into the garden.

>Feeling like we're taking advantage of plot armor pulling shit like this.
Just to note, It’s not a given that Kronos will live. He’s already been close to dying more than once. He got more of a plot tunic than armor.
>Kaktus also gave us a sure option to force Zela into the palace by Kira's order. It likely would have made Zela mad, but it would have been safe.
She wouldn’t be so much mad as terrified, as “less polite” implied sending guards to drag her to the Queen by force against her will.

Man if you think about it, Briannah has fucked up like, a lot. Constantly.

>>115840
Pretty much yeah. But if what she says is true, she just doesn't know any better and wants to be better, she just doesn't know how. We're kinda not a consistently good influence either.

And no wonder the world's about to end, the queen of self destruction is hitched to Kronos the master of ruination through ignorance.

I'm really hoping that Belseth's clue isn't assuming that, since both he and Kronos are nerds, we'd make a gigantic leap of logic to associate his clue with the Hero’s Quest for Loot/Quest for Glorious Loot board games or Regicide or any of the other games in either Kronos' room or Belseth's room! Because that would be plain unfair!

Figures that the one time we try an alternate solution to a problem rather than the one Kaktus is steering us towards, he punishes us severely for it.

>>117067
To be honest, if we knew Tim was going to slowly trace a rectangular opening through the door, we would've run like Kaktus wanted us to do.

I was expecting Tim to just melt a really big hole in the side of the door, which would've been enough for Zela's influence to leak through, and then he would've gotten to work melting away the rest of the door.

After reading this update, I felt a dismay and anger that left me feeling weak. And over the last hours I'm left backtracking through why I came to make such a horribly bad set of suggestions when the warnings should have been clear as day.

First off, Krotos said that the Crypt of the Gods was two rooms away, which I thought would mean running through two rooms that didn't even have the fading effect of Zela's protection. Without Zela's protection the darkness in them would be total, which would put us in clear danger of being attacked crossing them anyway. But I didn't stop to specifically ask if the effect of Zela's protection was clinging to the characters or the place. If it was the characters, they might have made it. I just want to know what would have happened if we had run right away, and what would have happened if we had run in the next update.

I also at the time erroneously thought that the Crypt of the Gods is a epicenter of the Nightmare's power, or at least a strong source, since the Nightmare corrupted Five are in there, so I thought we'd have to have Zela to have a chance at all. Now that we're in the Crypt, it's obvious I was dead wrong.

That glowing spot on the door where Tim was melting through made me think that he'd break through much sooner than he actually would. I'm slightly salty that Kaktus even showed that glowing hot spot when it only seems like it'd get us to think we should stay. Did he think that the small size of the spot would tell us that Tim wasn't going to break through fast enough? Also, if Krotos was yelling at us to run like he should have that update, maybe we would have reconsidered and done so.

I think a big part of why we ended up staying is because thinking we can find a clever "third way" to get everything is like catnip to not just us suggesters in this quest, but a lot of suggesters on tgchan. It leads us to make risky choices instead of the safe ones.

And it's a small thing, but still contributed a bit, that when Krotos said that "you could be safe" in the Crypt of the Gods, I thought "you don't fucking know we'd be safe?!" and slightly less inclined to run. In hindsight, Kaktus must have chosen the wrong word and if I'd just had Kronos ask Krotos why he wasn't sure it'd have been cleared up.

And my whole claim of a "paranoia trap" and that all the fear and threat was in the characters' heads was totally baseless in-quest and I never should have written it. Why I'd think Kaktus would pull such a thing after the very real physical danger the Catacombs has presented and the warnings Krotos was giving I can't explain.

>>117067
No, this isn't the first time Kaktus has made us suggesters pay for ignoring such blatant directions and warnings in one of his quests. The one time that leaps immediately to my mind is the end of Rust thread 5 with the protagonist, Jericho, in the Test of Power. Me and another suggester got some too-clever and totally baseless idea in our heads which led to Jericho getting impaled through the chest with a magic ice spike, ending the thread. He was a undead mummy so it wasn't the quest end, but Kaktus later said that if the lone other suggester had gone along with us two then Jericho would have died there, ending Rust. And if Kaktus still follows the same rule now, that means Kome's suggestion to run actually saved Kronos from dying, much to my chagrin.

It was my memory of that fuck-up that led me to post >>/quest/838781 in this quest, but I hedged it because the majority said to stay at the door. And then when there was no indication of my call to run in the next update, and there were signs Tim was melting through, I yet again ignored the lesson I should have learned by now and also said to stay. And looking back, I realize now that if I had said to run it would have been a tie. And since the tie vote between cutting Kronos' possessed arm off and using the earth elemental ended up with Kaktus choosing the better outcome, I should have hedged and said to run, like I had said originally. I fucked everything up yet again.

...Anyway, why did you feel that Krotos' warnings weren't enough? Your post in-quest indicates you don't think he's trustworthy. I would have been inclined towards that back at the beginning of the thread, but by the point he was yelling warnings to run he's proven himself enough.

>>117074
It's totally clear now, and was pretty clear before, that Kaktus had and has plot reasons for separating Zela and Tim from the rest of the group and no matter how good or clever our ideas were they weren't getting past that door. As for why Kaktus did so, it could be because he didn't want them entering the Crypt of the Gods for some reason. Or maybe so they can enter at some plot critical point a few minutes after Kronos and company entered. Or possibly just because if we waited for Tim to cut through we'd have simply run out of time. Or some other reason I can't think of.

>>117093
>Kaktus had good reasons for doing that.
Are you sure? Because this entire chapter feels.....rushed.

To me, it feels like Kaktus is railroading us to the ending of the story because he wants to end Strange Bedfellows as quickly as possible so that he can finally be done with it and work on a different quest.

>>117094
I didn't say the reasons were good or not, did I? Just that there would be a reason. That said, I do agree with you that it's been feeling kinda rushed. Having the twin moons suddenly appear six hours ahead of time being the most obvious example of that I can think of. And also we've been doing some things for meta reasons more than reasons that'd make sense for the characters to act in-quest. The entirety of Krotos being inserted into the quest as a "inside man" is the biggest example.

Trusting Krotos after he's been steeped in the Nightmare's influence for years when there's no way to independently check if his story is true just doesn't make sense inside the quest. But he's our only way to find out plot critical info and continue the story, so we have to trust what he says. However, the feeling that he shouldn't be trusted leaked through in 3ce125's suggestion >>/quest/838698 and played a big part in us screwing up in the face of Krotos' blatant warning.

It really would have been fine if Tim had just poked one hole in the door, like everyone assumed he was doing.

If Kaktus wanted to split up the party so bad he could've just had Tim talk through the hole to say it's going to take a really long time to melt enough of the door to get Zela through and that we should move on to stop the ritual. This outcome is just punishing the players for coming to a perfectly valid conclusion based on the available information. We didn't do anything wrong.

Hell, if there was something in the darkness (we weren't even warned about darkness monsters despite priests walking around without innocence-protection) strong enough to cut through Kronos' gun, why didn't it just kill everyone outright? It doesn't make any sense at all. I really hate this update.

>>117105
Except that the priests that traversed the Catacombs were almost certainly chosen because they were innocent, or innocent enough, so their aura would keep back any darkness monsters or shadow bugs. And the ones that aren't innocent, like Hera or Nero, they'd have the Nightmare's protection.

...Though, if there were such shadow creatures down here, they would have attacked Krotos when he was thrown down here. Even if he wasn't guilty of what he was charged with, he most likely wasn't innocent either. Perhaps the shadow monsters aren't everywhere in the Catacombs, or they're a creature created by the Nightmare which would explain why they zeroed in on Kronos and company.

But that all said, the valid conclusion should have been to run, based on Krotos yelling that we were in serious danger and needed to run. Yes, you think he's some Nightmare pawn or running his own con, but at that point in front of the door if he'd wanted to kill the group he could have misled us into deathtraps before we got as far as we did. In the small chance he's running some nefarious plan of his own, it's almost certainly based on getting Kronos and company to the Crypt of the Gods, which means we still should have heeded his warning.

Still, I would have liked to have some small indication of danger that wasn't just a general feeling of fear and dread before the shadow bugs arrived. A faint skittering in the distance, for example. Something that would be less able to be dismissed as in our heads. ...Though, thinking on it, the darkness closing in like it did around Sisah earlier when she went to the other end of the Judgment corridor probably was the additional indication of danger.

>>117137
The priests could not have been innocent enough to give them protection against the Nightmare, because they all got assassinated by Nightmare goons. Also, remember that we were told they had done scouting missions into the catacombs and there were problems with undead but no mention of the very air turning into flesh-rending swarms of whatever the fuck attacked everyone. The party was attacked by things we had no defenses against and no real forewarning about. The tendrils grabbing at Sisah was just about as vague a warning as you can get, and we had no reason to think that running directly into the goddamn things was any safer than waiting until they started attacking.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20 and we should've listened to Krotos. I chose to listen to Kira instead, and that would have worked out fine if she was right and it only took a minute for Tim to poke a hole in the door. There was no real evidence that this was the wrong choice, it just wound up being the wrong choice and we almost got a party wipe because of what was effectively a coin flip.

I do wonder if things would have been much better if we HAD run immediately. Maybe the shadow monsters would have taken out a few people either way, and it didn't actually matter what we did.

>>117169
>I chose to listen to Kira instead
It was Thalia, not Kira.

Kaktus 2017/10/26(Thu)09:48 No. 117173 ID: 65a774
File 150903651578.png - (310.18KB , 580x282 , c4jt321.png )

>Quest is almost finished, proceeds to murder it with one update.
This is fine.

>This entire chapter feels.....rushed.
It is a bit, both in long term and the current few updates. I simply felt that the quest has gone on for too long and was going in circles without any real conclusion, so I kind of forced the ending the start by making the villain start doing stuff. So sorry for that. I’m also a bit stressed out at the moment as I’m currently having a bunch of exams and projects to finish with school (Had a six hour exam today, in fact, have one tomorrow as well) so the last few updates have been done a bit quicker than usual, thus the dip in quality. I’m also sorry for that.
>Figures that the one time we try an alternate solution to a problem rather than the one Kaktus is steering us towards, he punishes us severely for it.
Actually, a lot of the solutions you usually come up with are things I haven’t thought about. The prime example being to use the elemental to remove Nero’s influence in Kronos hand to save it. I’d completely forgotten I had even introduced the thing as it was just meant as fluff at first.

>I was expecting Tim to just melt a really big hole in the side of the door.
Melting flesh is a lot easier and requires less heat than melting solid, magical rock. Considering that Tim just goes around and make sure all the runes in the palace work for a living, some things might be a bit above his level of skill. Besides, if he was able to make enough heat to burn through the door, he probably would have cooked everyone alive. Extreme heat and enclosed spaces don’t miss, you know.
>That glowing spot on the door where Tim was melting through made me think that he'd break through much sooner than he actually would.
In retrospect, I should have made it clearer exactly what he was doing by not just adding a dot but a small line to indicate he was actually cutting it up slowly.
>Also, if Krotos was yelling at us to run like he should have that update, maybe we would have reconsidered and done so.
“Fun” fact: I was originally going to have him continue yelling in that update but I forgot to add him in… thanks to stress.

>Trusting Krotos after he's been steeped in the Nightmare's influence for years when there's no way to independently check if his story is true just doesn't make sense inside the quest.
He is Kronos brother, a brother that he’s been looking up too and the one in his family he’s been the closes to most of his life. He’s also been repeatedly told that he was a hero after his death. Of course Kronos would have an easy time to trust him, even if it is simply denial that his brother can be a bad person. If anything, you guys trusting him don’t make sense. Even if he’s been leading you right until now he might have his own agenda, can’t he?
>Hell, if there was something in the darkness strong enough to cut through Kronos' gun, why didn't it just kill everyone outright?
And if it wasn’t out to just kill everyone? There is a pattern on whom it attacked and where that might shed some lights on its motive.
>What about the priests.
Things might change over time… especially when someone who’s committed genocide decide to mess around with a prison built to magically punish those that it deem guilty.
>I do wonder if things would have been much better if we HAD run immediately.
There would have been another challenge for you to solve, but if you did more people might have made it out of the catacombs alive.

TL, DR: Things got a bit rushed because real life and I’m sorry for that. Hope I didn’t burn the whole quest to the ground for it.
Also, the Boldly coming thread just went into the graveyard, just as I’m half-finished with its update… great…  

>>117173
>whom it attacked and where
Right, it was attacking sources of magic. Sisah's belt, Kronos' gun, Briannah's leg...

Why did it attack Kronos' ear though?

Looking at the quest update and the suggestions leading to it, I'm wondering why Kronos went with the overly complicated distraction shot from my suggestion post when by my tally the suggestions overall went with just shooting Hera. There was a conditional statement in my earlier suggestion that would have made it for shooting Hera, and 91ee5f's and 1e7aa8's posts went for shooting Hera without any fancy business. Was it my stupid last-minute suggestion change that tipped things?

All in all, it looks to me like if Kronos had just taken careful aim at Hera's head or left shoulder it would have been better. Even if it didn't take Hera down or missed, it wouldn't have been such a wasted shot, of which we have precious few. And if it did knock Hera down or made her lose the stone spike, then Hera wouldn't have broken Bri's artificial leg. Even waiting for Hera to throw the stone spike at Bri before firing might have been better, since Hera was targeting on Bri's armor and the armor could take the hit. Though, then Bri would have been at the least knocked back and not able to engage Hera to keep her from Kronos if Hera was still up after being shot again, so that would have been much worse.

>>117306
>Even waiting for Hera to throw the stone spike at Bri before firing might have been better, since Hera was targeting on Bri's armor and the armor could take the hit.
I'm not sure it would've been better. Bri wasn't wearing her helmet, so there was a chance that Hera could've hit Bri in the head and killed her!

So I think it was a good thing we distracted Hera!

I think it went fine. He just got punched in the gut basically.

>Why did it attack Kronos' ear though?
Magic is made out of “souls”, or life essence. The damned souls attacked the stronger magic sources first (guns, augmentations) before going after the weaker ones (people). Kronos ear just happened to be hit… and being pretty much just a small patch of feathers, they are easily ripped.

>I'm wondering why Kronos went with the overly complicated distraction shot from my suggestion post when by my tally the suggestions overall went with just shooting Hera.
Actually, just shooting her would have had the same effect, I just added the more complicated distraction as it sounded nicer as fluff. Doing things like attacking her in melee or letting her attack Briannah (or coming up with something smart I didn’t even consider, which you guys have a tendency to do) would have had different consequences.
>If Kronos had just taken careful aim at Hera's head or left shoulder it would have been better.
He would never have had the time to carefully aim before she attacked Bri. Besides, even with time he would have missed his intended target anyway, as he’s in no shape to aim anything at the moment.
>I think it was a good thing we distracted Hera!
Considering her first shot pretty much took out Briannah, yes, yes it was.
>I think it went fine. He just got punched in the gut basically.
He got hurt, yes, but it was nothing permanent.

>>117356
I certainly hope that Kronos going in by himself isn't just a way for you to bullshit a reason to kill everyone that's being left behind by closing another door and having shadow monsters come and kill them!

>Kronos is going in alone.
>There's only seconds left to stop the Nightmare.
I still think it's bullshit that Kronos has to do the cliché "hero goes into the final battle by himself" routine.

Even though he'd probably have help with him if we just left that room instead of waiting for Tim. He'd probably also have more than just seconds of time left if we left that room sooner.

So, yeah, waiting for Tim in that one room really fucked us!

Unless the elemental shows up or something else amazing happens, this is going to end with Kronos being unfairly outmatched and with Karas paralyzingly him with that stupid power of his, Kronos will literally be unable to stop the world from ending!

.....I'm really hoping you'll at least give us a fair chance of succeeding against these odds!

It's probably going to wind up with Kronos getting caught in whatever trap they have set and then something happening to give us a chance to act.

So, I probably need to do a lot more reading to catch up. But, and this is a heartless question, what happens if we shoot and kill Belseth instead? No sacrifice and no apocalypse, right?

>>117376
The first problem I see with that is that Kronos' aim is shit right now and Belseth is probably gonna be in the middle of the ritual hall, presumably away from where Kronos enters, and with hostiles around him that'll get in the way of a shot. And the shot would need to kill him outright, which makes for a even harder target since it'd have to hit right in the head or heart.

The second is that without breaking the Rune of Eternity, Old Man Life can't swoop in and rip out the soul of Xuv, which is vital to the ascension ritual, along with all the Nightmare's souls, probably the soul of Karas, and the souls of who knows who else is aiding the ritual. Don't break it and Xuv's soul remains in place along with the Five's corpses, the Nightmare, and everyone turned by the Nightmare, ready for them to try again the next twin moon's kiss. Oh, and they'd catch Kronos and kill him for doing that, and very likely Bri, Thalia and Xarrin too.

And the third is that we don't know if Belseth has to be killed in a specific way to complete the ritual, such as being dismembered then flayed alive, or if him just dying would satisfy the ritual's conditions. We also don't know if it needs to be done at a specific time. It could be that just killing Belseth would be good enough to complete the ritual.

I'm confused as to where Kronos is thinking of applying the knowledge of how Krotos broke free of the Nightmare's influence. Is it towards negating Karas' Nightmare-given power of despair or is it towards breaking Karas free of the Nightmare's influence? Because either way I'm not seeing how it could work.

If Kronos did find the way to get out from under the effect of Karas' despair power, what could Kronos even do? He's still in close quarters with Karas who both wants to kill him and has direction from his master to do so. If Kronos makes a move for his pistol or to draw Bri's sword, Karas'll cut Kronos down. And even if Kronos did manage to get a hit in, it's really doubtful it'd take Karas down immediately.

And I can't see how to apply how Krotos broke free from the Nightmare to Karas. Krotos, according to just what he said, couldn't stand to see his brother Kronos die and brought Kronos back up to the royal crypt where he could be saved. It's not said outright, but it's fair to surmise Krotos did so out of love for his brother. But with Karas, his final turning by the Nightmare was because Karas felt totally betrayed by his beloved brother Kronos, breaking that love. Presumably Karas didn't have any reason left to go on besides base anger and revenge and fell to the Nightmare's influence.

I'm looking that these two possibilities, running possibilities through my head over and over trying to figure out what the solution is, what it is Kaktus had in mind, and coming up with nothing that'd work. That or it wouldn't make sense to suddenly happen. Like Kronos shrugging off Karas' power of despair with his love for Briannah, then drawing her sword, symbol of their love and her trust, and smiting Karas with the Power of Love. That is so fucking hokey and out of left field I dismiss it. Or rekindling Karas' love for his brother by Kronos hugging Karas and tearfully, sincerely apologizing for what he said, which wouldn't make a lick of sense for someone fully under the influence of the Nightmare.

At this point I'm left feeling like I'm missing something basic. That Kaktus couldn't have made this challenge so tough and I'm just over-thinking. Or did Kaktus due to stress omit something, or not make something clear? As it is I just don't see a choice of action that makes sense.

And I suspect that 91ee5f hasn't posted because they don't have any idea what to suggest either. So we're left with just two suggestions right now: 3ce125 trying to talk to Karas like he's at all rational and would listen, and Kome's usual unhinged garbage. This does not fill me with hope. ...I guess I'll throw a suggestion in, a shot in the dark, and pray it's right enough.

>>117426
>And I suspect that 91ee5f hasn't posted because they don't have any idea what to suggest either.
That is correct, I'm clueless on what to do here!

>>117426
If Krotos got free because of his love for his brother, then what Kronos needs to do is patch things up between him and Karas.

Which is ridiculous at this point, unless he really WAS framed.

And 1b2c07, a suggester who apparently just dropped into the quest and doesn't know what the fuck is going on, just posted. They didn't even get Karas' name right. God damn, it's reminding me in a bad way of the ignorant suggester clusterfuck in thread three that led to Kronos losing a eye.

>>117427
As am I, and it's driving me nuts. I know I don't have any idea what could be the right way, but I can't just not post. I can't abandon the quest. Not after putting so much into it. Especially not after my part in the utterly shameful fuck-up that killed Sisah and Doxan and hobbled Kronos and so screwed the group and the quest's prospects. I have to see this quest to a not-bad ending, since all ways to the ending I would have liked died alongside Sisah and Doxan. ...But if all I can post is a shot in the dark with a hope and prayer and it's wrong, then it's all over. All that I and us put in over seven threads, over the past two years and four months, will be for nothing. Down the toilet. And I'm stuck. Can't suggest, can't not suggest, can't sleep on it because Kaktus might update while I'm asleep and it'll be a Bad End. But I'm tired and it'll just get worse and harder to think and... I don't know. I just don't know.

>>117435
I think Kaktus expects us to get out of this easily.

Or if we don't, then he'll just watch us struggle for a bit before either ending our suffering by killing us or he'll take pity on us and randomly throw something at us that'll save our collective asses.

I really hope Kaktus does not actually allow kome's shitpost to leak through into the quest. That would be really dumb.

>>117450
Agreed.

I wonder what would've happened if Kronos had tried to enter Cain's dream.

Okay, I'm getting nervous that we've made the wrong choice shooting at the Rune of Eternity and not Nero, but I can't figure out a in-quest in-character reason not to. First reason is that Kronos doesn't know if the wand has more than one charge left. Second reason is that Kronos' aim is going to be bad 'cause he has to use his off-hand and Nero is likely going to be dodging Kronos' shot. Third reason is that Kronos has no idea how close to completion the ritual is and to spend even a little more time to shoot Nero risks it finishing. Put 'em together and Kronos can't afford the risk of possibly losing his only shot.

To choose to shoot Nero I have to meta that because Nero and Hera showed up right after Kronos got the wand that Kaktus will make shooting Nero connect and have at least one more charge left in the wand to shoot the Rune of Eternity. And dammit, we shouldn't have to fuckin' rely on meta knowledge. But if we chose wrong then I think what would happen is the Rune of Eternity would still break, but Kronos would pay dearly at Nero's hands before Life rips the Six and their power driving Nero away. Kronos will very likely lose in limb and possibly in life 'cause his fate to end the Six would already be fulfilled.

>>117697
Well I'm hoping for the army of tiny elementals to swarm them. Because Nero and Hera are focused on Kronos, they have no reason to look down until it's too late! XD

Actually, it looks like Kronos' ear grew back after doing his "phoenix" being reborn thing.

Maybe that means that his fingers and his eye also grew back?

>I wonder what would've happened if Kronos had tried to enter Cain's dream.
Hilarity would ensue.
>I don't think Kaktus is going to let us beat the final boss by being lewd.
…you’ve read my quests before, right?

...And in the end the correct choice was to shoot Belseth, disrupting the ritual and destroying the Six's vessel and them by the soul "burn" that seemed to destroy Nero's soul. And it was the one option we totally dismissed 'cause we kept thinking "we can't hurt Belseth," even though when you think about it even a little his soul has to have been devoured by now and he's totally dead, his body nothing more than a shell for the Six. And we stupidly didn't think that the Six hadn't planned contingencies for the plan we explicitly told them about. Like putting the Rune of Eternity right on Belseth's body, which they most likely did and was fuckin' hinted to us threads ago. God damn it, I feel so fuckin' ashamed that I went along with it and didn't even think it through, didn't even consider Belseth. ...Or Kira. The ritual needs her, so blast the center of the Rune of Eternity, sweep up and catch her and the Six in Belseth's body. But of course we couldn't even consider such a thing, could we?

Well, I don't see any way to talk our way out of this impossible situation, but I know we'll try anyway. And then the Six will consume Kronos for not swearing himself to them immediately and trying to yammer on. And then the only way I can think of that that could stop them is if a "poison pill" was hidden inside Kronos' soul unbeknown to him and us.

...Dammit, I'm shaking for real because of all this. I need a break...

>>117711
If the Six want to consume his soul they have to kill him again to do it, which means Life shows up and they lose because even if Life can't see them he can see where Kronos' soul is going. So yeah, kindof a poison pill.

Also they wouldn't have died from getting shot by the wand, obviously. That's still too anticlimactic. They probably would've deflected the shot, and then the deflected energy would've broken the rune. I'm not sure what Kaktus would have done if we decided to aim directly at Nero. Maybe the energy blast would've been big enough to hit the rune anyway?

>>117712
Goddamn it, the Rune of Eternity doesn't just make whatever is under it's effect hidden from Life, it makes it UNTOUCHABLE by Life! Life can only see and effect that which is mortal, that which has a beginning and end, and the Rune of Eternity makes things and people eternal and unending. It doesn't matter if Life can see that Kronos' soul vanishes in some spot 'cause Life can't do anything about it as long as the Rune of Eternity is in place.

The only one that died down there after the chamber's Rune of Eternity was broken that Life may have picked up on is Nero and maybe Hera. And since Nero's soul seems to have been totally destroyed, that would make Life even more angry 'cause souls should return to the River of Souls and not be completed. But that assumes that the Six didn't stick another Rune of Eternity(, or two, or three,) on the chamber for redundancy.

>>117714
>But that assumes that the Six didn't stick another Rune of Eternity(, or two, or three,) on the chamber for redundancy.
Kaktus wants us to finish this story just as much as we want to finish it.

He/She wouldn't pull something as bullshit as 2 or 3 extra runes around the room or on Belseth's body. He/She would give us something fair that we could beat.

Which makes me think that there's only 1 extra rune somewhere. Either in the room or on Belseth's body. And if Bri's and Bel's visions of Bel's dick having the rune are to be believed, then that's the only rune we have left to worry about!

I didn't think of this before, but Cain being the avatar of Life would explain why he missed the tea summons that one time with Belseth. That would also indicate Besleth had the rune on him by that time. It also means that either the rune has an area around it where Life is blind, not just the thing it's drawn on, or Cain decided not to show up because he could tell something was interfering with his senses and he didn't want to show up and reveal that. Like for instance, he'd have shown up with the wrong number of cups for tea.

Has Cain ever been in the same room as Belseth since then?

Yay we defeated the Six! Time to avoid falling flat on our faces at the finish line.

>>117801
Agreed because holy shit that was stressful! DX

Man what is with all these thumbnails being so fucked up?

Jeez, Kaktus, are you purposefully making this even more complicated so that we end up choosing the bad option?! DX

Kaktus, can you do a Musical Song-And-Dance Number ending for Strange Bedfellows?

...the vote's tied. 4 to 4.

I think we may need more discussion in the thread.

...nevermind. 4 to 8 now.

...and now it's practically tied again.

I haven't Voted yet cause I don't know which on I want! I what Sisah and Doxxan to live but I also want Kronos and Briannah and Belseth to get together and for kids to be had!