Comic 1141 - Make an offer
Posted on 8th Dec 2018, 10:44 PM
in Like a Bullet from Behind
Average Rating: 5 (4 votes) /
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Author Notes:
In the meantime, you try to find out the old fashioned way.
You begin to explain that you are new god yourself--one fully capable of changing fate, and breaking prophecies. You've done it numerous times now... in fact, you've stopped the plans of the Man That Would Become A City.
"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?," the voice crackles, louder than before. The energy in the room... intensifies, but not to dangerous levels. Not yet.
You explain that it's very, very unlikely that the man in question would allow parasites inside him. He's--
"THAT IS WHY I NEED POWER," the worm replies. "WE WILL TAKE HIS MEAT. WE WILL TAKE IT BY FORCE."
--Okay, but it doesn't have to go through all that trouble. You can provide infinite meat and space for all the worms, ever, without issue. If the worm agrees to a small... let's say blood pact, you can even provide the silkworm with more knowledge and 'prophecies.' The worm will never have to eat ghosts again--they'll be directly linked into a network of information.
"YOUR BLOOD HAS POWER," the ghostly voices hum. "YOU SEEK POWER OVER ME. THIS IS A TRICK."
You shake your head. No, it's not. You're trying to find a middle ground, where the worm can get what they want, but no one else has to be hurt, no souls need to be consumed, and the planet doesn't have to be turned into a weird mass of god-meat. It's true that accepting the blood would grant you the ability to control the worm, but you don't want--
"WITH ENOUGH POWER, THE MAN THAT WILL BECOME A CITY CANNOT STOP ME."
"IF I ACCEPT YOUR PACT, YOU WILL HAVE CONTROL."
"FULFILLING THE PROPHECY WILL MAKE US STRONG."
"YOUR DEAL WOULD MAKE US SLAVES."
You emphasize, more strongly, that you have no intentions of manipulating the worm. You just want a peaceful resolution to this entire situation, one that doesn't result in the world ending.
"RIDICULOUS."
"WHAT DO YOU GAIN?"
"WHAT IS THE POINT?"
You, personally, would take solace in knowing that a species of giant worm gets to survive in spite of everything else staying normal and ungodmeated. Your own infinite expanse of meat will have giant worms around to protect it. Just as you can share information with the worms, you can learn from them--more about electricity, more about their silk, all kinds of things. It's a symbiotic relationship, instead of a purely parasitic one.
"ONCE I AGREE TO THIS, YOU HAVE NO REASON TO HOLD UP YOUR END."
"YOU CAN PRY KNOWLEDGE FROM US."
"TORTURE IT FROM ME."
"FORCE US TO WORK."
But, you wouldn't--
"I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT."
"NO ONE TRULY DESIRES PEACE FOR ALL."
"ONLY SURVIVAL."
"POWER."
"ALWAYS MORE POWER."
"THE WOLF CARES FOR THE WELL BEING OF THE SHEEP."
"ONLY AS LONG AS THERE ARE ENOUGH SHEEP STILL TO BE EATEN."
"I AM NOT SO EASY TO TRICK."
You check, quickly, on the others. Fuse, Caius, and Michelle have set up an impromptu tradesmen ritual, and Michelle is currently in the process of it--from the outside, you can't tell how her conversation with the tradesmen is going. It's... strange, in a way--when you perceive through her, it's like she's just standing there, staring off into space in the middle of the ritual circle. You imagine that's how YOU looked to others while YOU did the ritual, though.
You don't know how much longer it'll be before she gets answers, though--and the power circulating through the room is steadily increasing, drawing out of the worm and working its way into the walls.
I still consider it a tactical threat, but then again, I get paranoid over drinks people give me, so take from that what you will.
Maybe... assemble the cage, and once it's up, make MORE cage material and continually assemble them as the previous ones disintegrate. The worm's energy is not infinite-- it needs to recharge between attacks.
Or... Portal away. Drop into a blood portal and seal it behind you before the lightning follows.
Or... Find some way to make the worm reconsider killing us within the next three seconds.
Inject it with paralytics from the bug, make sure it understands that we have the upper hand. After that, we can show it our kindness, but this worm is arrogant and stubborn. It needs to be shown that this isn't bargaining, this is mercy.
Edit: That said, not a big fan of having worms in the red. There are summoners across the galaxy channeling the new red, remember? If we add worms... that could cause problems cross-galaxy. Offering a place *filled* with blood on the other hand, maybe better.
Show it we are wyrm-mom but we don't take no shit.
If it refuses our very kind deal, things will not go well for it. It does not have the power to resist us, and it needs to be made aware of thos fact.
A show of force, then. Lets go full, intimidating blood god. Flood the room, summon cages and hooks and terrible implements. Divert it's electricity - drain the flow using our blooded webs. Blood all the rest of the webs. Do all these things and make clear that we are the one who decides what happens.... But don't hurt it, not yet.
See if it changes its tune.
after this we could push some meat out of the red for the wyrm. unpoisoned, untainted. if it trusts us, good, if not, oh well.
Meat cage then step out of the room.
Meat cage to avoid the electric discharge, then step out of the room to avoid the corrosive attack it'll spit at us as well as the lunge attack.
We tried, Silkworm, we tried.
Blood it, portal the giant injectiony thing through and just pump it full of blood. That's the first step. Avoid damage, then return an attack, after that, we'll just stop it from doing anymore and we can continue negotiations.
If that doesn't work, then fold and pop back outside
Second, meat cage ASAP. Blood the floor -- via a cut on our hands if necessary. Use meat cage to tank the next electrical burst head-on. Show it that we can undermine what its throwing at us, to its face, without breaking a sweat; it might be thinking it just missed us before.
Thirdly, keep our cool. We can display our eldritch-divinity without going full Rambo or incapacitating the worm. Assert dominance (or at least disinterest(?)) without violence and give it a perspective that it may be more willing/able to accept and respect.
...Also, I don't think we ever asked if it has a name of its own, or something we could call it by (might be nervous about using True Names)? Preeeetty sure that never came up.
Didn't we blood the webs already? Drain the charge into the red. Blood the webs specifically in this room if need be. We have no reason to let this thing just slowly charge up its deathray. Maybe it will be a little more willing to negotiate if it realizes it can't zap us to death. If it'll take too long to blood the webs then start the process then build a shield around ourselves.Tell it that the soul it was after is gone. There is no surviving Thale's plan, no source of power to allow it to infest god. If the prophecy comes to pass then the worm will die with the rest of us. Nothing good will come out of it. Helping us, on the other hand, will ensure its survival.
If we just wanted power, then it would be dead already.EDIT: The point was made on the discord that this could come off as too hostile - just go for the shield. If it keeps trying to zap us after this one, then we disable the contraption.
Try a hug while keeping static shock countermeasures up.
Please ?
If they fear the possibility of us slaving them, we can simply evade having even a mÃnimum amount of control over them. They'll be in our Red without us having control over them.
And that it's true that we won't search for the peace and understanding of everyone. The Man That Becomes The World will die, his allies like The Man That Works With The God Of Oblivion will die, and even The God Of Oblivion may die. But we want to find peace and understanding with everyone that decides to not bring a calamity. We don't need to consume others to be stronger, our Powers comes from an infinite source, we only take control of our enemies.
Thale doesn't understand this, and has had to divide his own mind and weaken his own self in the process. We are more fit for purpose than he is, because we understand our own powers and how they are best used. Similarly, symbiosis is less costly than parasitism. We're giving the silkwyrm the chance to *maximize* its power, while allowing us to share in that power and share of our own power in an efficient and useful way.
We respect that the silkwyrm is an incredibly powerful entity, and it has ways of making life *very* difficult for us even with our blood inside. We don't want to struggle like that, because it's wasteful, and wastefulness reduces how much you can bring your power to bear-- so we'd much rather have willing cooperation.
If the silkwyrm is concerned about the fact that blooding by us is permanent and it can't back out of the agreement if it wants (which is understandable, that's a BIG sticking point in this sort of negotiation)... I think it's okay for us to reveal that we have actually considered how to "unblood" people. We could possibly even demonstrate somehow if the silkwyrm would like to see. That's how dedicated we are to our path.
But we're clearly not interested in that, or we wouldn't be going to so much trouble. Probably worth mentioning.
I'll +1 throwing up another cage, but at this close a range, shunting the electricity elsewhere might be a better idea. We were at a distance last time, and air is an insulator.
Now, negotiations may still be salvageable, Twyll has outlined that route, and if it works, great. If it doesn't we need to know whether we're going to try and blood the worm, or just kill it.
If we blood the worm, it will probably do everything it can to require our direct control, if only out of rebellion and spite. The plus side here is that we could potential sync with the worm, and gain access to it's memories and skillset, and giving us more info on Thale's plans.
On the other hand, is we attack and kill the worm, it could leave an imprint. It's highly electrically powerful, it's under some serious emotional stress, and it already eats other imprints. Oh, and let's not even touch upon the whole vengeful-ghost trope.
On a hypothetical third hand, we could just drag it into the Red. This avoids all of the problems implicit with killing the worm, and proves that we're an alternative to Thale. We can then also make a deal later.
At risk of turning this metaphor into an octopus, on a fourth hand, we don't need to deal with the worm at all. We can simply acknowledge that it doesn't want to make a deal, and leave. This preserves the worm, and we get to leave. Once we're outside (and hopefully out of range), we can come up with new ideas for dealing with it.
There are other options on the table as well, but this has become a wall of text.
We do seek power.
We seek our own safety and well being. Our safety also includes the safety and well being of others, even others we don't know or maybe find undesirable, so long as they can live without ruining the safety a d well being of others.
Maybe a touch idealistic and not completely achievable but it is a real goal.
If they were eating Thale-fleshblood then wouldn't that be just as bad as being Mine-blooded?
The blooding is also ostensibly reversible, and the position they're being offered now is much more stable than the furtive position they would have to take by force.